Disclaimer: Even though nobody threatened me to tell you, I still feel obliged to state that I don't own Numb3rs or its characters.
Rating: M
Timeline: mid-season 3 (while Larry is in space)
Edit 18th March: Thank you, Anonymous, I fixed it :)
Threatened
"What about forensics' revised report of the third crime scene, are they finally done with that? Oh, and Charlie, we really need those images from the surveillance cameras."
Charlie nodded and pulled up the images his brother was talking about, while David explained to him that forensics still hadn't gotten back to them.
"Here they are," Charlie told his brother, turning around his laptop towards him. "I could enhance the program further if you need me to, get some more pixels out of it."
"Will we be able to see anything then? I mean, this is still just an outline."
Charlie shrugged. "I can only work with what we have. If the cameras didn't catch his face, I can't just put it there by magic."
Don sighed, running his hand through his hair. "You're right of course, I'm sorry, I was just hoping this would get us one step further."
Charlie, who had been watching the clock for a while now, decided that despite the bad news, this had to be his cue. "You know, I'll be happy to try and help if you can think of anything else, but right now, I have to go back to CalSci."
He'd been a little worried that Don would ask him what was more important, his teaching or catching a serial killer, but there was none of that. Instead, he gave him a light slap on his back and said, "Of course, and thanks for your help, buddy, we really appreciate it."
"No problem," Charlie replied with a tentative smile and after a moment of hesitation tore himself away from this hustle.
He was just waiting for the elevator when his cell phone informed him that he had received a new message and he opened it. He frowned when he read the text that just said, I like your shirt. I'd love to rip it off you right away. That was all, no greeting, no signature, not even a number he could call back. What was this? Had Amita sent this text to him? But her number wouldn't be blocked, and besides, this wasn't really her kind of humor.
Only when the elevator doors opened did the most likely solution occur to him. Probably he'd been the recipient of this text erroneously, someone had just gotten a digit wrong when they'd tried to reach their new acquaintance of the night before.
Yes, that had to be it.
It was early the next morning when Charlie stepped out of the house, so early in fact that he was careful to close the door softly in order not to wake up his dad. He had a full day ahead of him. First, he needed to do some stuff at CalSci that had accumulated ever since he'd started helping out Don on that serial killer case and then, after giving the two lectures he had today, he wanted to go back to the FBI and see if something else had popped up for him to do in the meanwhile.
When he got to his car, he slowed down, not sure what it was he was seeing in the dim morning light. When he'd come a little closer, however, there could be no doubt. A piece of cloth had been stuck under his windshield wipers, white and red of color. Charlie frowned. How had that come here? Even if someone had found it on the street and picked it up, it was strange to walk up all the way of their driveway to put it here if there wasn't reason to assume it belonged to him or his dad, and that it didn't was something he was relatively sure of.
He picked it up in order to examine it and let it drop from his hands the moment he realized what the red color signified. He could see now that the cloth was actually a shirt, the standard issue type his brother sometimes wore to work. And right there, above the left chest pocket, right where normally the heart would be found, there was a red stain thinning out the further it went down towards the hemline.
Blood.
Charlie felt he was going to be sick, and he had to bend over to release the unpleasant tension in his stomach. Just as he did that, however, he got a closer look of the shirt, and even though there was nothing he wanted to do more than tear his eyes away from that, he was mesmerized by the sight, and then he saw it: it wasn't real. It had looked real enough at first glance and in the dim light, but now, at second glance, it was obvious that this wasn't real blood. And when Charlie took up the shirt close enough to his face to sniff at it, he couldn't help but emit a soft laughter. Ketchup. He'd fallen for the oldest imitation of blood the film industry had ever seen.
The grin faded when he sat in his car and threw the smeared shirt in the footwell of the passenger seat. Now that he thought about it, it was a little unsettling, wasn't it? Who would put a seemingly bloody shirt under the wipers of his car?
All of a sudden, he was reminded of the text he'd received the day before. Hadn't it said something about a shirt as well?
He pulled out his cell and read the text again. Yes, there it was, I like your shirt. I'd love to rip it off you right away. What was that, some stupid prank? Or some way to taunt him? For one thing was certain, if this was a joke, Charlie wasn't getting it.
"So I take it the case isn't going well," Amita said after having spent a minute in silence to study her boyfriend. She had come to Charlie's office for a quick shared lunch, but ever since she'd stepped inside, it had been clear that Charlie's mind was somewhere else.
"Not particularly, no," Charlie agreed.
"Anything I can do to help?"
He looked up at her and she finally got a smile from him. "That's nice of you, but I don't think that the mathematical consult is the problem in this case. You should focus on your research with Millie and your work for the curriculum committee, I know you're busy enough with that as it is."
She returned the smile. It was nice to see that Charlie realized she had a job of her own now and wasn't merely his assistant or something of the sort. And it was true, she was busy with all her new duties, but that didn't mean she wasn't willing to help him out if he changed his mind.
The ring of his phone aroused his attention and with concern awakening, she watched him read the text he'd received and that had made the smile on his face vanish.
"What is it?" she asked.
He looked up at her and it almost seemed as though for a moment, he had completely forgotten about her presence.
He shook his head. "Nothing," he said in a low voice.
She was silent, hoping he would come around on his own. When he did, she couldn't help but breathe a small sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry, I… well, I don't really know what to think about it."
"Then let's think about it together," she suggested.
He gave her another smile, but she could see that it didn't reach his eyes. "It's just some strange text, probably a prank or something."
He held out his phone towards her. As she read the text, a frown was forming on her face: My, my, aren't you a lucky man that this shirt hadn't come off your back?
She looked up at him and he took his cell phone back for a moment to show her another text that read, I like your shirt. I'd love to rip it off you right away.
She shook her head. "I don't understand. Are they from the same person?"
Charlie shrugged. "I suppose. Both times the number was blocked. I first thought that one text might have been from you, but judging from your reaction, you don't know anything about that either."
She looked at him hard. "I don't," she said and told herself not to be paranoid. After all, he'd shown her the messages himself, so this didn't seem to be something he wanted to keep from her. And being up front with her just as part of a game so he could continue sneaking around behind her back… no, that was something Charlie would never do.
"There was a bloody shirt attached to my windshield this morning," Charlie went on explaining and even though he tried to keep his tone light, she could hear the slight tremble in his voice. It was only then that it hit her: these texts weren't merely strange, and even though there might have been something flirty about them, they didn't exactly convey a friendly attitude, there was an air about them that was almost menacing, dangerous.
"You should tell Don about this," she said, suddenly infected by his nervousness.
"Tell him what, exactly?" Charlie gave back. He'd obviously thought about it himself and had already rejected the idea. "Nothing has really happened, they aren't even actual threats. It's probably just some prank. Besides, Don's busy enough with that serial killer case."
Amita bit her lip. She knew that Charlie was right in a way, but still, she had a weird feeling about this. "I think he would want to know," she insisted.
Charlie gave a soft chuckle then. "Trust me, he's so stressed out these days, if he had to take on anything else, I think he might literally chop off the head of the unlucky messenger."
Alan looked up from his newspaper in surprise. There had been a noise out there that he couldn't place, and since Charlie had just left for CalSci, that ruled out his most viable suspect.
Curious, he got to the window and felt a smile spread across his face. This was a rare view his eyes were presenting him with.
He stepped out of the door quietly, trying not to ruin the moment of surprise.
"Make sure you don't hurt yourself," he told his son as he stood there behind him, his arms crossed before his chest.
"Dad!" Charlie exclaimed as the lug wrench fell out of his hands. "Do you have to sneak up on me like that?"
"I just didn't want to disturb you during your attempt at manual labor," Alan said, suppressing a snicker.
"You make it sound as though I've never changed a tire in my life," Charlie retorted a little grudgingly as he took up the lug wrench again.
"Well, to be honest, I think you may have more often published a mathematical paper than changed a tire."
"Doesn't mean I can't do it on my own," Charlie said.
The smile was still on Alan's face, but now, pride was clearly predominating all other emotions.
"So, what happened?" he asked, still watching. If Charlie claimed he could do this on his own, who was he to push his help on him?
"A flat tire happened, Sherlock," Charlie gave back, before he added a mumbled apology for his rudeness.
Eventually, Alan took pity on him. "You know, if you're running late, I can still help you."
"No," Charlie replied, but his voice had a conciliatory tinge to it now. "I'm almost done anyway. Thanks though."
While Charlie was busy putting the spare tire in place, Alan inspected the old one and frowned. He checked his suspicion by sticking his fingers through the tear, but there could be no doubt, the cut was simply too clean.
"You should take a look at this," he told his son. "Someone must have sliced it open with a knife."
"Yeah, I saw that," Charlie replied and without another word knelt down to drive in the screws.
Alan shook his head. "It's sad to see what people are willing to do to each other even in a neighborhood like ours," he said while he picked up a piece of paper that was lying under the broken tire. It looked as though it had been stuck inside the tear, and neither able nor even willing to fight his curiosity, Alan unfolded it.
"I'm not sure if acting like a jerk actually correlates with one's home address," Charlie gave back, but Alan hardly heard him. This was a strange note he was reading, and he had to read it again to be sure he was getting this right.
Not so easy getting headway now, is it, Professor? Luckily it was only your tires.
"Did you see this?" he asked, the note in his hand, as he walked over to his son.
Charlie looked up at him and judging from the expression on his face, he had not only seen it, but also hadn't planned on telling him about it.
"Oh," he said now with the guilty conscience of someone who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie-jar. "Um, yeah, I did."
Alan could see he was nervous now, more than that actually. There was a fear in his eyes that seemed to have nothing to do with his failed attempt of hiding that note from him.
"Who wrote this? Are you having problems with a student?"
"I don't know who wrote it," Charlie said and busied himself with tightening up the screws with the torque wrench. "I'm sure it's nothing."
Granted, Alan couldn't see his son's full face, but the section that he could see made it clear to him that Charlie was much more worried about this incident than he was letting on, and Alan tended to agree with him.
"Well, it's not nothing," he clarified. "It's a broken tire, for one, and a threat, for another."
Charlie bit his lip, but chose not to reply anything. He was done with changing the tire now and was busying himself with putting back his tools where they belonged. Alan gave him a few seconds, but intervened when it became clear Charlie wasn't going to talk about this on his own.
"Charlie," he said earnestly and held him back at his arm. He waited until his son was looking up at him, and there it was again, the simmering fear in his eyes. "Is there anything I should know about?"
Charlie sighed and broke off eye-contact, but then seemed to realize that Alan wasn't going to let this go. "I got some other strange notes yesterday," he finally admitted. "Actually, it already started the day before that. And apart from the notes, someone also stuck a bloody shirt to my windshield."
"A bloody shirt?" Alan repeated aghast.
"Not real blood," Charlie appeased him, "just ketchup. And that's the thing with these pranks, whoever is doing this obviously wants to taunt me in some way, and I certainly won't let him win by freaking out."
Alan regarded his son's face earnestly. Even yesterday, he'd noticed that something wasn't quite right with his youngest, that Charlie seemed a little pale and was rather on edge. However, he'd assumed it to be about Don's case, and he had to admit, he would have preferred that solution to whatever this was.
"Maybe freaking out is what you should be doing," he remarked. "Have you talked to your brother about this?"
Charlie's reaction was much more impetuous than he would have expected. "Why does everybody seem to think that there's anything Don can do about this? He's with the FBI, this isn't anywhere near his jurisdiction. Even if we were talking about a crime here, it would be vandalism at most."
"Look, Charlie, it can't hurt to make the police look into this –"
"Actually, it can," Charlie disagreed with a hint of irritation. "You know how swamped our police forces are, and it's precisely having to take care of such nonsense that prevents them from going after the bad guys and keeping real crimes from happening, and I won't participate in that simply because of some stupid prank! I mean, it's pretty clear I must have pissed off a student somehow, but what I don't get is why they feel the need to lash out at me like this. I just don't get why they wouldn't come to me in person, I mean, I am able to take criticism, and I'm really trying to be fair to everyone."
He gave the broken tire a brief and irritated nod. "I'll take care of that tonight," he informed his father, "I have to go now, I'm already late."
"Charlie –" Alan tried to stop him, but in vain.
"Sorry, Dad, see you tonight," Charlie said and got into his car.
As he watched him drive away, he didn't know what to think, he just knew he didn't like it.
"Be safe, son," he whispered.
Charlie was glad when the day ended without any more complications. True, his dad was unusually quiet at dinner, but since any conversation would have probably revolved around his latest receipt of unwanted attention, he was fine with that. He knew that his dad would only try to convince him to talk to Don about this, and he didn't want that. Don was busy, he had better things to do than concern himself with some stupid prank. Besides, what would Don think of him if he made a bigger deal out of this than it was? He'd either think Charlie was trying to make himself important, or, even worse, he'd be strengthened in his belief that his kid brother couldn't handle the real world as soon as it pulled off the nice-and-cozy mask it used to wear for him. No, Don would tell him to stop freaking out, and Charlie was one step ahead of him by choosing not to start freaking out in the first place.
After dinner, he went out into his garage to work late, not willing to commit the same mistake as the night before. He'd gone to bed early then and regretted it for several hours before he'd finally fallen into a restless slumber. He'd known it to be silly, but he simply hadn't been able to stop thinking about those stupid messages, both verbal and non-verbal. Who was behind those? And why were they doing that? Why would they want to torture him so much? For that was what it was, Charlie felt tortured by the insecurity of whether and how those threats were going to continue, by the fear of having to find some new nastiness just around the corner.
Tonight, however, with the sleep deprivation from the previous night and the right strategy to make himself tired, it worked a lot better, so that in the morning, he found himself relatively well rested.
He tried not to think about the notes over the course of the day and to direct his thoughts towards Don's case instead. It didn't always work, though. Whether or not he wanted to admit it to himself, those notes were making him uneasy, and he just didn't know how to get rid of that queasy feeling that had taken hold of his entire body.
It was in the afternoon when all his attempts had to be thrown out of the window, for it was then that he found the next note.
This time, the guy had actually stepped over the threshold of his sanctum, his office at CalSci, for they found the note attached to his blackboard with a strip of tape. That definitely hadn't been there before he'd gone out with Amita to have a late lunch.
"That's from him, isn't it?" she asked and he could tell from the tremble in her voice that she was just as freaked out by all this as he was himself.
"I suppose," he replied, trying not to let his own fear show. It wouldn't really make things better if she knew how concerned he was getting about this whole thing.
He got nearer to the board and read the note. It was an obituary, but even at first glance, the paper seemed too thick as though it could have been taken off a real newspaper. Someone had obviously imitated the layout and font and printed it out using a normal computer.
The poor imitation wasn't what made Charlie feel sick though, it was the text itself.
Professor Charles E. Eppes, 9/5/1975 - ?
Professor Charles Edward Eppes, 32, passed away unexpectedly after having sustained severe injuries in a most tragic accident. He leaves behind mountains of useless mathematical gibberish and will be remembered for his obnoxious arrogance and overall unbearableness.
Charlie swallowed. He could feel that he was starting to sweat. He was scared, alright, but more than that, he was filled with a sense of hurt and injustice. Who would hate him so much to write such things? And as an obituary no less? Was that meant as some kind of threat to his life?
"This is getting really scary," he heard Amita whisper next to him.
He was silent.
"Charlie, I know you didn't want –"
With a sigh, Charlie interrupted her. "I know, I should show this to Don. I mean, I can do that, but you'll see, there's nothing he can do about this either."
And so, with a kissed good-bye, he left for the FBI, fervently hoping his brother would prove him wrong.
"Thanks, Colby, and when you're done with that, you should go home."
"Got it," Colby replied and gave both him and Charlie a short signal with his hand. "See you guys tomorrow."
Once the door had closed behind him, Don ran a hand across his face, sighing deeply. G-d, what a day. What a week, to be more precise, or two weeks even. True, they were making progress, but to Don it still seemed like they weren't doing enough. And yet, he couldn't even fathom the idea of doing more than they were already doing, he didn't even know how much longer he could go at this rate.
"You should head home, too," he told his brother, his guilty conscience kicking in. Granted, Charlie had only come here about three hours ago, but it was three hours he could have easily spent otherwise.
"Yeah, I'm gonna do that," he said quietly. "There's something I'd like to talk to you about first, though."
For a moment, Don was tempted to ask him to postpone that talk to the next day, for he was sure his mind was about to burst if it had to take in even one more information. Then again, he figured things wouldn't be looking better tomorrow. "What's going on?" he asked.
Instead of giving him an answer immediately, Charlie pulled out a piece of paper from his laptop bag – a piece of paper that he'd actually put inside a plastic bag, as if he considered it some kind of evidence.
"This was stuck to the blackboard in my office today," he explained.
Don took it and read what seemed to be an obituary, although one that would probably never have a chance of getting printed in a respectable newspaper. Not only did it state someone as deceased who was sitting right there next to him very much alive, it also described that someone's life in not very charming words – and Don had to know a thing or two about that, since he was probably the one to have used all those words against his brother more often than anybody else.
"Okay," Don said, wondering what Charlie wanted him to do about this. Since he wasn't explaining anything further though, Don fell back into his usual routines ."So who had access to your office?"
"Everyone," Charlie replied. "I didn't lock the door when I went to lunch."
Don started to sigh with exasperation, but Charlie cut him short, "I know, okay? Spilled milk."
"So what do you want me to do about it?"
Charlie shrugged. "I don't know. I just… well, it's not exactly fun reading your own obituary."
"Yeah, I can see that. But you gotta admit, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later."
Charlie gave him a frown full of confusion.
Don chuckled softly. "I hate to break it to you, buddy, but you're a math teacher. That's not exactly the most popular trade on campus."
He'd half expected an ardent defense of the beauty of math, but instead, Charlie just nodded earnestly. "So you think a student did this."
"You don't?"
"I'm not sure. I just..." He fell silent, but Don could read on his face that there was still some inner conflict going on.
He frowned. Now that he thought about it, he had to realize that Charlie had been awfully quiet during the whole afternoon. This really seemed to have been weighing on his mind, and although Don was convinced this was just a stupid prank, it was obviously one that had successfully freaked his brother out.
"That really bothers you," he observed, his words almost sounding like a question.
Charlie shrugged and Don thought he might even be blushing a little. "I don't know. I just wanted to show it to you. Amita made me promise. But now I have, so… you know, just forget about it."
He took the plastic bag from Don's hands and stashed it back into his laptop bag. "I'm gonna head out then, you should make sure you do, too."
"I will," Don replied quietly and actually pretty touched by his brother's show of concern. Concern, however, was a two-way-street, and as he watched Charlie pack up his things, he couldn't miss the troubled expression on his face.
"Charlie, wait!" he held him back at his arm when Charlie was about to head towards the door. "If it really bothers you that much, I'm going to talk to forensics and ask them to see if they can pull some prints from that note, maybe whoever put it in your office has a record somewhere."
The look that Charlie gave him was so intense that Don felt a shudder run down his spine. There was still fear in that look, but also something like hope. "But you think that I'm being paranoid, that I'm blowing things out of proportion."
Don shrugged. "I don't know, I mean, to me it just seems like some stupid prank from a student who felt you treated him unfairly, but if it makes you feel any better, we can give it a try."
Charlie nodded, but still didn't look convinced.
"Come on, give me that thing and I'll give it to forensics first thing in the morning."
He watched Charlie blush and bite his lip as he retrieved the obituary from his laptop bag. "Okay. Thanks," he said in a low voice.
"No problem, buddy."
Charlie held up his hand to shield his eyes from the bright afternoon sun when he stepped out of the university building. He glanced at his watch and realized he had to hurry, after having been delayed by a colleague who'd dropped by at his office, he was a little behind. He'd promised Don to come by the FBI to help him with the case, but now it seemed as though he needed to correct his promise by about fifteen minutes. For a moment, he considered calling Don to let him know about his being late, but he knew that Don wouldn't mind a slight delay – not as much as being interrupted by more unnecessary phone calls. And when Charlie realized that the main reason he felt like calling his brother was to get some news about the fingerprints on his obituary and that those were news better to be discussed in person, he told himself to just get into his car and hurry. As much as he hated admitting it to himself, he was anxious to hear about forensics' results, for if they had actually found something, there was a good chance that Charlie would finally know whether there was anything serious about this or whether he'd completely overreacted after all.
He'd just opened his car door when he felt his cell-phone vibrate. He closed his eyes in exasperation and for a moment pondered whether he couldn't just ignore it, but then again, it might be a text from Don or something else of importance.
But of course it wasn't. Charlie felt his pulse quicken as he read Number blocked and opened the text. It seemed as though his heart was quickening its rhythm even further as he read the newest threat his unknown enemy had sent out to him:
They say only the good die young. I guess you need to figure out for yourself whether or not to be worried by that.
"What nonsense," Charlie mumbled under his breath as he threw his cell on the passenger's seat and started the engine. As much as he wanted to maintain an unconcerned front on the outside though, he could no longer fool himself. This was starting to freak him out. True, until now, the stalker or whatever this was hadn't hurt him, but somehow, that seemed even worse. All that Charlie had to go on were his threats, and he couldn't even try to estimate how truthful or accurate they were.
With a deep sigh, he put his car into drive and tried to forget all about that. He rolled off the parking lot and down the hill towards the main road. He had to do a rather narrow turn to get on that, so he slowed down a little, or at least he wanted to. However, his car didn't follow his orders. Charlie tried again, actually flooring the break, but without effect. He tried to apply the parking brake, but it too wasn't working.
By now, he had reached the main road and had to yank around the steering wheel rather violently in order to turn the corner, literally. Luckily, there was no other traffic, or he would have crashed right into an unsuspecting road user.
As it was, that was bound to happen sooner or later anyway, and when Charlie realized that, he broke out in a cold sweat while his throat was suddenly dry. Right now, there were no other cars to be seen, but he knew that this stretch of road led downhill onto an even bigger road, with much more traffic.
He felt his heart pound in his chest. What was there to be done? He had to slow down the car somehow, but how? There was the theoretical option of turning the car around on the street, change the sign by going upward instead of downward, but he knew he couldn't do that on the narrow road, not at the speed he was going. That was one more problem actually, he was already much too fast for his liking, so whatever he was about to do, he had to do it now.
For a moment, the thought of just jumping out of his car occurred to him, but that wouldn't really solve the problem of his his vehicle becoming a potentially deadly danger to others, would it? So he only had one chance, and that was the ditch beside the road.
He tried to slow the car down gradually, he knew it would run slower in the grass than on the street, but apparently, the downhill force was greater than the rolling friction of grass, so Charlie steered his car further towards the ditch, and then, he'd gone too far. The car toppled over, tumbling into the ditch, and moving no more.
"Okay, that sounds good," was Don's tentatively hopeful reply to Colby's report. "Make sure you show Charlie those images when he gets here, maybe this time this picture enhancement thing will get us somewhere."
"Will do," Colby said while the ringing of his phone diverted Don's attention.
"Just wait a second, it's Charlie," he told his team members before answering the phone. "Hey, buddy, we were just talking about you, what's up?"
"I uh… I'll be in late today, and I'm not really sure by how much."
Don frowned. There was something not right about his brother's voice, it sounded as though he'd just seen a ghost. "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing dramatic, but I just had an accident, and now I'll have to stay here until the police arrives."
The frown on Don's forehead deepened and he could feel that his hands were starting to sweat. "You're okay, though, right?"
Don noticed that he was gripping his phone quite tightly, and even though his mind told him that Charlie took hardly more than a second to answer, it still felt like ages.
"I'm fine," Charlie then said and Don breathed a sigh of relief. "Just some minor bruises. I just wanted to let you know I'd be late and um..."
"Are you sure you want to come here afterwards?" Don interrupted him. "Shouldn't you go home and get some rest?"
"No, I'm fine, really," Charlie claimed. "But there's… one more thing."
The frown was back on Don's face. "What?"
"My brakes weren't working. I think someone may have tampered with my car."
"What?" Don whispered and was immediately reminded of their conversation the day before – and of the obituary that was still lying around somewhere on his desk. "Shit," he cursed softly as the ramifications of his deeds or rather his neglects hit him, making him disoriented and slightly panicky. He put his hands against his forehead, desperately wondering how he could turn back time and make things right.
In the meantime, his mind started working against him by developing a life of its own and bringing all those pieces of information that Don had stashed there in the darkest corner into a clear, logical line of reasoning: Charlie had been threatened – Charlie had been scared – Charlie had asked him for his help – Don had promised him his help – Don hadn't kept his promise. And now Charlie had been in an accident, and as hard as Don might be trying to close his eyes from the truth, the culprit was obvious.
"I've got to get going now," Charlie's voice pulled him back into the present where the effects of his omission were still unfolding. "The police has arrived. I'll see you later."
"Yeah," Don managed. "Take care." For you obviously can't count on me to do that, a bitter voice in his mind added.
He ended the call and for a moment just stared at the display, trying to take a deep breath. It wasn't working, his chest was tight, as though someone had put him into a medieval instrument of torture. Once he realized that the mere act of breathing wasn't going to set him free, he knew he needed to get rid of all those pent-up feelings.
"Damn it!" he shouted and threw his cell into a corner of the room where it shattered to pieces. The aggression was still there though, so he ran his hands through his hair and tried walking it off. He felt like stepping into that corner and grind the pieces of his phone with his foot, doing something to release the tension in his body, and then he knew how. He'd failed, true, but there was still a way to make amends, he could use all that energy to finally do what he'd neglected to do before.
"Don, what –" Megan started, but couldn't get any further without Don interrupting her.
"I'll be right back," he explained without really explaining anything, "I need to head down to forensics."
With that, he was out of the door, leaving behind three confused team members.
Don glanced at his watch for what had to be the fifth time within the past minute. It was getting late, and what was more, almost three hours had passed already since Charlie's phone call.
In the meanwhile, Don had not only repaired his phone (which meant he'd inserted his SIM card into the old phone that luckily had still been lying in his desk for emergencies), but he'd also filled his team in on the latest events. So now, all he was doing besides trying to concentrate on their serial killer case was anxiously waiting for some news from his brother, preferably being delivered by said brother himself.
With a soft knock at the door, it was opened and Charlie sneaked in, or tried to, for of course his entrance couldn't go unnoticed. Even before his subdued, "Hey guys," had fully left his mouth, Don was already on his feet, although he stopped abruptly where he stood, as though he was being magically repelled by the soft collar around Charlie's neck. Hadn't his brother claimed he was fine?
"Hey, how are you doing?" Don asked before Charlie had even closed the door.
"I'm fine," Charlie replied quietly. Apparently though Don's face was displaying at least some part of the worry that had taken hold of him, so he went on, "Really, Don, it's nothing. I don't know why they bothered giving me this thing," he said with a gesture towards the soft collar. "And other than that, I'm fine. Two hands, two feet – everything's just the way it was before."
"Good," Don said softly and pulled him into a quick hug. "I'll be right back, just give us a minute," he then told his team members and led Charlie outside. "So you're sure you're okay?" he asked him again when the door had closed behind them.
Charlie rolled his eyes, which finally made Don believe his words. "Yes, and I will be fine no matter how many more times you'll ask me that."
"Look, I'm just..." Don started, but didn't know how to say this. This was unfamiliar territory, for this had never happened to him before, not like this. Yes, there had been some few incidents when he'd had a feeling that he'd let his brother down somehow, or that he hadn't watched out for him enough, but this was his worst mistake so far. Charlie had come to him for help, Don had given him a promise to take care of things, and he'd simply forgotten. How was he supposed to ever make this right again?
"What's wrong?"
He couldn't say it, not with Charlie's searching, trusting eyes resting upon him. Yet, he had to apologize if he wanted to maintain at least a slight chance of fixing this again.
"I'm so sorry, Charlie," he said in a low voice. "I totally forgot about the obituary, I only gave it to forensics after you called." He shook his head, but he didn't know what else there was to say. "I'm so sorry, I was so wrong about this, I just really didn't think it was serious."
"Oh," Charlie said, thereby leaving him completely in the dark as to how badly Don had managed to screw things up between them. "So then... I suppose they're not done yet with the analysis," was all that he chose to add.
Don shook his head. "They should be done any minute though. I asked them to rush it and call me immediately when they have the results, and I did the same thing with the LAPD and your accident report. I promise you, buddy, we're gonna get this guy."
"Um..." Charlie said, still not very eloquently, before he finally went for some content, "Okay. You do realize though that it may still be nothing more than some student playing pranks, right? I mean, true, my car has suffered quite some damage, but this still doesn't seem like something that the FBI should concern itself with. Shouldn't you focus on your serial killer?"
Don was shaking his head. "This isn't a prank anymore if people get hurt. And I'm telling you, I'll make sure he won't succeed at that again. Either with the obituary or on your car, we'll hopefully find something to point us in the right direction."
"Well…" Charlie said and nervously licked his lips, "if you're really looking into this, maybe his earlier threats might also be helpful to catch him."
Don stared at him. His brother's nervousness and his words didn't make for a good combination. "What earlier threats?" he asked, his voice low, since all his energy was used for suppressing his rising anger.
Keeping calm at least on the outside worked until he'd heard the full story, and it even worked beyond that.
"Is that all?" he asked when after the messages, the bloody shirt and the ruined tire, his brother seemed to have finished the list.
"Yeah, that's all, but I thought that maybe –"
"You thought what!" Don interrupted him, and since he hadn't bothered to hear out Charlie's answer, it made sense that his words didn't sound like a question. Granted, however, with all the shouting, there really wasn't much difference between a question and an exclamation. "What were you thinking?! 'Cause let me tell you, it seems to me like it couldn't have been a lot! You never thought about mentioning these to me when you showed me the obituary?!"
"I..." Charlie started and swallowed nervously while he was trying to figure out why he hadn't considered it necessary for Don to know he'd been threatened for days now. "I just thought that if you didn't think the obituary was important, then the rest –"
"You never thought that the combination of such events might be important?!" Don interrupted him again. "I thought you understood a thing or two about the concept of patterns!"
"I..." Charlie started again, but was saved by the opening of the door.
"Hey," David said as he stuck his head out into the corridor, "a witness claims she saw our guy, we may have a partial license plate."
Don frowned in confusion. "So check it out!" he told his team, still furious, but now also more than a little befuddled that they seemed to have forgotten how to do routine police work.
"Actually," Colby joined the conversation, "we're already on it. But when we heard the shouting, we just wanted to make sure Charlie's still alive."
Don first stared at him, then down at his battered little brother and finally retreated with a grumbled, "Not thanks to anyone's merit."
With that, he left. He needed some air.
Colby leaned back in his chair to take a deep breath and let his thoughts wander around their case. His gaze fell on the map where the crime scenes were marked and that had been untouched since almost a week now, since the latest victim had been found. Technically, that was according to Megan's and Charlie's timeline, the killer should have struck again yesterday, but until now, they hadn't found a body. True, maybe their killer just hadn't displayed his newest victim as publicly as the previous ones, but Colby had a feeling that there was a different solution. To him, it seemed as though their killer had gone into hiding, and while that was technically a good thing, it also meant that the window to catch him would close until he would strike again somewhere else. But at least, it would mean that the hot phase of this investigation was over and they could finally go back to more regular working hours.
His gaze fell on Charlie. Now, more than twenty-four hours after his accident, the mathematician was still looking awfully pale, and who could blame him? Being threatened in such a way was certainly no fun, especially since there were no pointers as to where all the aggression was coming from. But maybe that would change soon enough. True, they hadn't found any prints on the obituary or any usable traces on Charlie's car, but Don had already arranged for all the other evidence to be examined, including Charlie's office where the obituary had been found. Maybe they were lucky enough to find something. Colby didn't fool himself, though, the chances for that were pretty slim, and until they found anything, if they were ever going to be that lucky, Charlie was condemned to a life of fear and insecurity.
"So how are you holding up?" he asked him point-blank, still regarding him thoughtfully.
Charlie looked up at him and apparently decided that with only him and Megan there, he could allow himself to answer the question truthfully. "I've been better," he said with a shrug, and Colby corrected his thoughts to semi-truthfully.
"Hey, at least Don still hasn't bitten your head off," Colby tried to point out the silver-lining.
"Not literally at least," Charlie mumbled.
"He's just worried about you," Megan put in. "Anger is simply his way of showing that."
Charlie sighed. "I know. And it's not like I didn't give him reason to be angry. I know I should have told him everything at once."
Damn right, you should have, Colby thought, but refrained from saying the words out loud. Charlie didn't look as though he needed another blow.
"Any more messages since your accident?" he asked instead.
"Just one, yesterday evening, when Don took me home. You have more luck than brains."
Colby chuckled, he couldn't help it. "I'm not sure I'd agree with that."
"And nothing today?" Megan asked.
Charlie shook his head. "None. I'm thinking he may have gotten scared now that someone's looking into the matter. Maybe he's abandoned his plan, whatever that was."
Colby raised his eye-brows and exchanged a glance with Megan. He knew they were both thinking the same thing. After the way the threats had evolved and given that Charlie had received another message after the first physical assault, it was highly unlikely that their guy was just going to disappear.
The door opened then and Don came in.
"David's not here yet? He said they found some results."
"In which case?" Colby asked.
Don gave his brother a nod. "Charlie's," he said with a serious expression on his face before he took a seat at the other end of the room.
Despite everything, Colby had to hide a grin. He knew that under different circumstances, Megan would have found this a most interesting character study. It was obvious that both brothers were feeling guilty about how they'd handled this matter, and it was equally obvious that they hadn't really talked this out. However, none of that was stopping them from looking out for each other and working together on not only one, but two cases.
As it was, however, the character study had to wait, for at this moment, David rushed into the room, an open laptop in his hand.
"We have a name," he said, immediately filling the room with new energy. While he connected the laptop to the projector, he continued, "Forensics found some prints on the tape dispenser in Charlie's office and were able to match them to a Professor Mark Simon." He pulled up a picture of the man that was projected on the screen. "This is him."
Colby gave the picture only a quick glance before he directed his attention towards Charlie, and what he saw made him start.
"Whoa, Charlie, are you okay?"
While their friend had been pale the entire day, now it seemed as though all color had left his face as he was sitting there staring at the man who had put him through this tough time. When Colby looked over at Don, however, he felt even more uneasy. He too was staring at the picture, with an expression on his face that was more distraught than Colby had ever seen him before.
His words had directed also David's and Megan's attention onto their friend, but they had time to exchange a worried glance before Charlie spoke.
"I'm..." he started, but his voice was failing him. Colby noticed that his breathing had accelerated and he was starting to show all signs of panic while he was still searching for words. Eventually, he tore his eyes away from the screen, apparently feeling their gazes upon him and looking around like a wounded, hunted animal.
Then, he stood, and before anyone could stop him, he mumbled a hardly discernible "I need some air" and was out of the door.
Without a word, Don followed.
Colby looked at his co-workers and didn't know whether to be worried or relieved that their faces were showing the same confusion he was experiencing himself. "What the hell just happened?"
"Charlie."
Charlie bit down his lower lip, trying to control the pain, to keep on breathing even though he knew that the bond between him and his body was already broken. For he knew, if there had been any way to get out of his skin, he would have taken it there and then, without any questions asked. He couldn't, though, all he could do was to hold on, breath by breath, just holding on to anything so he wouldn't fall apart for good.
"Charlie, talk to me."
His brother's voice was low and soft. Caring. And as much as that awful voice in his head kept screaming that he didn't deserve this, that he needed to stay alone, he knew he could no longer do this on his own.
He turned around to face his brother, still biting down his lip, still fighting off the moisture that was bewetting his eyes.
Don took pity on him then. He put his arms around him and held him close, and even though Charlie was still miserable, still hurting from a pain that was rooted so deeply that there didn't seem to be a way to alleviate it, he at least felt as though he could breathe again.
For several seconds, he returned the hug, drinking from the feeling of safety and care that his brother was giving him. Then, however, he remembered where they were, he remembered who he was, who Don was, and that this was not them.
"I'm sorry," he said and had to clear his throat to make his voice audible. "I guess that was the shock."
With some impatience, he tried to blink the moisture away, and he almost succeeded.
"Don't be sorry," was all that Don said. His voice was still so soft, still tender, not at all annoyed with his difficult little brother. And his eyes… there was a softness in those, an amount of emotion that Charlie had hardly ever seen there before.
"You know who he is?" he felt compelled to ask, even though he could see the answer right there in the look on Don's face.
"Of course I do."
Charlie cast down his eyes. So Don knew. He probably shouldn't be surprised. It was just that he'd never been sure that their parents had told him about this, or how much, and even so, Don might not have remembered his name after all these years. After all, his brother had been at college at the time, while he himself had been at Princeton, they'd lived in two different worlds. Besides, Don had never mentioned it.
But then again, Charlie hadn't either.
"Come on," Don eventually said with a voice whose raucous quality surprised Charlie not little. "I'm gonna take you home."
Charlie nodded, but had to take a couple of seconds before his voice was back. "Thanks."
It was as though he was fourteen again, and even though he loathed his own adolescent self that was still part of him and still, at least in this moment, making him unable to stand all alone on his own two feet, he longed for the simpleness of life at the time and for the belief that no wound was so deep that it could not be healed by a hug.
"I'll have to get my car keys, they're in my jacket upstairs," Don said with a tone as though he had to tell him that Christmas had been canceled this year.
"I'll just stay here," Charlie replied a little too quickly. He knew he was a coward, but he just couldn't stand facing Don's team members again, and much less would he be able to bear their questions.
"Are you gonna be okay on your own?"
Charlie nodded and tried to ignore the fact that Don was treating him like a five-year-old. If he acted as though he was five, if he let his big brother take him home and couldn't man up and accompany him upstairs, those consequences were only fair.
He leaned against the balustrade and took a shaky breath. As he supported his head with his hands, he found their cool touch somehow comforting. His clammy fingers were actually helping to cool down the raging of the flames behind his forehead, they were slowing down the memories that were flooding him, giving him some orientation in that whirl, some repose.
He still remembered the day it had started, even though at the time, he hadn't known it to be the beginning of something so much worse. He'd been in Simon's office then, for the second or third time, since Simon had offered to give him some special tutoring to further his gift. His mom had met with him before consenting, she'd listened to the proposal of this charming young man and considered Simon's idea wonderful and very generous. As she'd told Charlie on her deathbed, it was an error of judgment she had never forgiven herself, even though she knew that Charlie had.
He knew that his mother wasn't the one to be blamed for this. Charlie himself should have been the one to stop the abuse before it had gone so far. The problem had been the timing. That first time, Simon had done nothing more but put a hand in his back when they'd been bending over some books spread out on his desk. It had been unusual and had thus imprinted itself on Charlie's brain, but only because of what had happened during the following sessions. In itself, the hand in his back had been nothing to cause alarm, or so Charlie had thought at the time.
Things had started to pick up pace then, but so slowly that Charlie hadn't been able to see it before it had been too late. There had been more touching, of his back, his arms, and sometimes, when they'd be sitting next to each other, of his knees. Charlie had told himself that Simon was probably just someone who was very comfortable with physical touch, and he'd continued telling himself that when the touching had spread to his thighs.
The first time that he'd touched his member, through his jeans, Charlie had thought it to be an accident, or at least he'd told himself that. Over the course of their next meetings, however, those contacts became more and more often, and more and more directed, even aggressive. By then, Charlie had known he should speak up about what was going on in that office three times a week. On the other hand, too much had happened by that time. He would have needed to explain why he hadn't come forward earlier. If he had let Simon do all those things to him this whole time, didn't that mean that he'd given his silent consent? And what was that saying about him? Wasn't he some kind of whore, someone who allowed others to sexually exploit him? And anyway, he didn't have any proof. At the time, Charlie had had no doubt that the statement of a tenured professor would be considered much more credible than that of a fourteen-year-old boy.
He'd tried other ways to get out of it. He knew he couldn't ask his mother to stop the tutoring without presenting her with a reason, and he hadn't been able to find one besides the truth, and that was something he couldn't tell her. Instead, he'd tried acting sick, but that hadn't been a solution for the long run, not if he didn't want his mother to get suspicious.
A hand in his back made him whirl around. For a moment, he had been sure it was him, even though he should have known it was just Don. Still, his breathing took several seconds to get back to normal.
"Ready to go?"
Charlie just nodded, speaking was still a task requiring too much energy.
They made the way to Don's car in silence, but once they were sitting inside, Don hesitated before starting the engine.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked then.
Charlie thought. He hadn't talked about this in years, and never to Don. Somehow, it seemed wrong to start now, like this. All he wanted was to go home, to feel safe again.
So he shook his head. "No. Not really." There was, however, one question that just wouldn't leave his mind. Still, he was strongly tempted to postpone it to a later point. He didn't want to worry about that now, he didn't want to think now, about anything.
However, now was the time that he felt he could talk to his brother, that he felt as though Don wouldn't laugh about his fears, so he let the question out after all, "Have you told your team?"
Don shook his head. "Not yet." There was some hesitation, and Charlie feared what was about to come. "But I think I'll have to," Don then confirmed his fears.
Charlie nodded, waiting until his voice was back. "I understand," he then said. "Just, could you… I just don't want to be there when you do."
"Of course," Don said as though his request was a perfectly natural one and finally started the engine.
Charlie turned his head and looked out of the window, seeing the familiar surroundings as though they were in a foreign city, or maybe in a computer game. It just didn't seem real, it didn't feel real. It didn't feel like home.
All of a sudden, his memories from Princeton were all there again. It felt a little like being taken back in time, as though his mom was picking him up from the library. For a moment, he was sitting there next to her, staring into the night and agonizing over the question whether or not he should tell her about those private lessons with Professor Simon. He couldn't, though. She wouldn't understand. Even though she was his mom, even though she was a successful lawyer who'd seen the ugliness of the world, she wouldn't understand, for nobody could understand what this was doing to him, not even Charlie himself.
And now? He hadn't really changed much, had he? He had the threats let go on and on until it had almost been too late, and just sheer luck had prevented a catastrophe. It was as though he was reliving the trauma of his adolescence all over again, unable to stop the events that were occurring, that Mark Simon was orchestrating as the master puppeteer with his favorite puppet, Charlie himself.
"Why is he doing this?" he asked when they had almost reached their childhood home.
Don was silent for a moment. "I don't know, buddy," he said then. "But he won't hurt you again, I promise."
"Yeah," Charlie replied softly. "That's what they told me then."
He knew that the comment hadn't been fair to Don, and he wasn't surprised when his brother chose to stay silent for the remainder of the ride.
Don was glad that their dad seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to Charlie's mood swings. This way, Charlie could go to bed without having to explain himself while Alan patiently waited for Don to sit down with him and do the explaining.
"What's going on?" he asked him when things upstairs had quieted down and Charlie seemed to be sleeping. Or at least in bed.
Don sighed and let himself fall onto the couch, running his hands over his face. He wasn't sure how his dad was going to take the news. He wasn't sure how he was taking it himself.
"We identified Charlie's stalker," he said. "Or anyway, the guy who's been threatening him. It's Mark Simon."
His father's face fell. "The Mark Simon?" He gave the stairs a look of utter dismay and started to get up from his chair. "Oh good Lord, I need to check on him."
"No," Don held him back. "He just told me he needs to be alone for a while."
His dad was still looking at the stairs, the inner conflict between respecting his son's wishes and calming his own concerns clearly visible on his face. In the end, altruism won.
"How is he taking it?" he asked Don.
Don shrugged. "I'm not sure. It was quite a shock, I think. But I'm not really sure how he'd been taking the whole thing when it went down either."
"Well, he's never really talked about it," Alan remembered. "Only to your mother. And, of course, the psychiatrists and policemen and whoever else."
Don nodded and tried to keep everything at an arm's length, like he had been doing, but he couldn't do that anymore, not with the quiet atmosphere, not with his understanding father knowing everything about his life and Charlie's, not with everything that was coming down on him. Besides, Charlie was upstairs, there wasn't really a reason why he had to stay strong.
"I should have been there for him," he whispered hoarsely, finally letting out the knowledge that had been encumbering him for years, for half his life. Yes, he should have been there for his brother. He should have let him know that he could talk to him, that Don was never going to turn away from him. He hadn't, though, he just hadn't known how. He hadn't known how to take what his brother might have told him, he'd been scared of not finding anything to say to him, or worse, of saying the wrong things. And how could he have told him that he wouldn't turn away? They'd already grown so far apart at this point that it had seemed as though turning away any further would have resulted in approaching each other from the other side.
In the end though, the truth was as simple as it was brutal: he'd let his brother down because he'd been a coward.
"It certainly couldn't have hurt," his father quietly agreed with him, and Don could feel a big, fat lump rise up in his throat. He tried to get rid of that, he tried to swallow it down, and maybe it was the effort that made the corners of his eyes burn.
"But you were a kid, Don," his dad continued.
His attempts at defending Don's behavior were void, though, and Don knew it. "I was nineteen."
His dad put a hand on his knee, and when Don tore his gaze away from his cramped-up hands, he was met with those kind, gentle eyes. "And in many ways, you were still a kid, and you deserved to be."
Don pressed his lips together, fighting to keep the tears from spilling. He succeeded, but his voice was reduced to a choked whisper. "Charlie would have deserved that, too."
"Yes," his dad agreed quietly. "Yes, he would have."
He would have almost missed him. He wouldn't have expected him to be up so early in the morning, but judging from his agitated movements, he didn't seem to be feeling completely at ease. He'd probably had a restless night after yesterday's events, just like he'd hoped. However, he wouldn't have expected to be this lucky, for if he was getting this right, Charlie was leaving the house on his own, at dawn. Probably trying to clear his head. Well, he'd wish soon enough he'd thought twice about that.
Simon prepared to leave his hiding place, a house opposite the street of the Eppes residence that had been vacant for a little over two weeks now. It had been a perfect place to observe his prey from and make sure that his gifts were getting the right amount of attention. But now, it seemed as though it was finally his own turn to receive a gift.
He stepped out of the house and followed Charlie, noticing how the weather was playing into his hands. It was cloudy today and windy, there had been a storm during the night, and that not only meant that it was still rather dark and there would be little chance of being witnessed, but also that it would be that much easier to sneak up on his prey.
Charlie had left the residential area by now and reached the outskirts of the Angeles National Forest. He was climbing a small hill with swift and purposeful movements, apparently he'd been here before, maybe these hills were his preferred hiking paths. That gave him a small advantage, but with the weather and his being unaware of his predator's presence, Simon knew he still had the upper hand.
Charlie had come to a stop now, he was sitting in the grass overlooking the landscape. The wind was still strong, rustling in their ears, and Simon knew that this was his chance. He made sure he still had the vials in his chest pocket before he picked up a stone that seemed to serve his purpose and then got nearer and nearer to his victim.
Just as he lifted the stone, Charlie turned around, but by then, it was already too late for him to put up resistance. The stone hit him on his forehead, a little more centrally than Simon had planned, but it did the trick. Dazed from the blow, Charlie fell over backwards. His eyes had stopped obeying his mind's orders, but they still weren't completely shut yet, the eye-lids were fluttering, and Simon knew he had to hurry. He retrieved the syringe and a vial from his pocket and didn't hesitate before injecting the barbiturate into Charlie's neck. When he felt the prick, Charlie actually seemed to gain some orientation, he tried to get up, but Simon knew it was of no use now. Between the blow to his head and the barbiturate, Charlie had no chance of getting away, so Simon just sat there and enjoyed the show, watching those pitiful attempts of getting on his feet until, only a minute later, the barbiturate kicked in and his prey collapsed for good, remaining motionless on the rocky ground.
Don softly knocked at the door to Charlie's bedroom and when he found that it wasn't fully closed, he opened it wider and peeked inside. Charlie's bed was empty, which meant that he had to be either downstairs or in the garage.
When he found both places empty, a queasy feeling started to settle in the pit of Don's stomach. He made a quick inventory. Charlie's car was still in the driveway, but the spare key for the front door was missing. Don frowned. Surely his brother wouldn't be so stupid to leave the house on his own after everything that had happened?
He did another, more systematic search of the house and found that his brother really wasn't here. He was just returning from the basement when his father descended the stairs and he was relieved to have found an ally in his search.
"Hey, Dad, you know where Charlie is?"
The look on his father's face told him everything there was to know. "He's not here?"
Don shook his head, for he had to swallow first before his voice was back. "He took the spare key with him, but where would he go?"
His dad shrugged, emanating a calmness that, whether or not it was fake, was getting on Don's nerves. "I assume he went out for a walk."
Don shook his head, forbidding himself to even allow for that possibility. "He wouldn't do that."
"Well, after yesterday, I imagine he has a lot of things on his mind and needed to clear his head." He had to see that his words didn't calm Don down one bit, so he went on. "I'm sure he's gonna be fine. That Simon wouldn't dare attacking him openly, much less in broad daylight."
Instead of calming him down, though, those words had the opposite effect. "Oh yeah?!" Don exclaimed. "You're willing to bet on that?"
His dad must have really had his experience with being worried about his sons, for at least on the outside, he didn't show the panic that had taken a hold of Don. And he was still able to think clearly. "Why don't we just call him and make sure he's alright?"
For a second, Don just stared at him. He hadn't thought of that. "Yeah, I'll do that," he said, much calmer now. While he pulled out his cell, he became aware that he'd probably overreacted. Up until now, all of Simon's actions had been somehow sneaky, he wasn't the type to openly confront his victim. Besides, he seemed to have studied Charlie's routine, and going out this early in the morning was not part of that, so he couldn't have planned some devious trap for him. And yet, even though Don knew it was highly unlikely that something had happened, he still couldn't banish the queasy feeling that had taken a hold of him, and he'd already made up his mind to make it absolutely clear to his brother how damn stupid it had been to leave the house on his own.
The queasy feeling intensified when the ringing continued without anything happening. His gaze met his father's that now did show worry, but in an ironic twist, Don told himself not to freak out. This wouldn't have been the first time his brother was too deep down in his own mind to notice the ringing of the phone. And if that was the case here, they could forget about Simon, for then Don would kill his little brother himself.
He closed the garage door before he opened the trunk and regarded his captive. He was still out and probably would be for another hour or so. Ample time to finish the preparations without having to act in haste.
He took him up, over his shoulders, and brought him into the house, then down to the basement and into the room he'd adapted for exactly this purpose. It had been his rehearsal room once, and basically, it was just a small storeroom, not even a hundred square feet, but large enough to put up both his guitar and his drum set. Back then, he'd even made the room soundproof, pursuing his music with an amount of passion he knew only tried to make up for the years he hadn't been able to indulge in it, the years spent in prison.
When he'd worked out his plan, the rehearsal room had immediately appealed to him as the perfect place to keep his captive, and he'd added the necessary utensils: a chair in the middle of the room, in fact a night stool, screwed to the floor, that would prove invaluable especially during the first couple of days. Then, there was a camp bed in the corner and, of course, two surveillance cameras on the ceiling, capturing the room from two different angles. In this room, he could keep his prey for weeks, even months, without anyone suspecting anything.
He was panting a little when he'd reached the bottom of the stairs and rolled his shoulders to relax them when he'd laid his prey down on the bed. He wasn't as young as he used to be, that five in front still made him feel old, but he'd kept himself in shape and today, he was especially thankful for his own discipline.
His lips were twisted towards a grin as he stood there above his victim. Charlie was still slender, though not as slight as he used to be. The muscles in his arms were more pronounced now, he'd seen that when he'd watched him change his tire, and also his chest was broader than it used to be. The boy he'd once been had become a man, and even though Simon could still see his former self in him, even though his figure was still pleasant enough to the eye, he felt that the attraction he'd once experienced at the sight of him, that electric excitement, was gone now. But since sexual gratification wasn't his foremost motivation in this endeavor anyway, he could accept the mediocrity as a bonus instead of a taint.
He took off Charlie's shoes and socks first before taking his time with the truly enjoyable parts. A soft shudder was running down his back as he opened the zipper of Charlie's jeans, and he took them off with a diligence that added to his arousal. He left the boxers in place, knowing it would be more fun to enjoy his present with time. Instead, he removed his jacket and T-shirt and then regarded his work with satisfaction.
Don was running his hand through his hair, turning around his own axis to see if he couldn't spot his brother somewhere after all, yet knowing that he wouldn't be so lucky. This was bad. This was so bad that Don feared it wouldn't be something he was able to make right again, and the panic that thought induced made him shaky and put a pressure on his chest that made it hard for him to breathe.
"We're going to find him," Megan tried to soothe him. He heard the words, he could feel her warm hand in his back, but it didn't make things any better, not when he could see with his own eyes how desperate the situation was.
They'd just found Charlie's phone, lying in the middle of some rocks, one of which had traces on it that looked a lot like blood, and Don didn't need a whole lot of imagination to know what must have happened here.
"We just need to find Simon," Megan continued. "And he won't know we're already onto him, so that shouldn't be too hard. We're gonna get Charlie back, Don, soon."
Don just nodded. His throat had closed up, rendering it impossible for him to speak. He knew that Megan was right, they were going to find Charlie, and they were going to find him soon.
But he also knew that it would never be soon enough.
His head was hurting. It was as though it had swollen to double size, rendering his impressions of the world around him unrealistic and distorted. There was a sound, and it took him a second to realize it was his own groaning. He blinked, fighting to open his eyes fully and do something to alleviate the pain and the sickness.
He could sense that something was wrong, and the second he lifted his head, he jerked back violently, repulsed by the face that was so close to his own that he'd felt the other man's breath.
Professor Simon.
The recognition was accompanied by a leaden feeling of sickness in the pit of his stomach, adding to the nausea that had to stem from whatever drug that monster had given him, and an uncontrollable sense of panic. He needed to get away from here, he needed to get away from this monster, now, but he found that he couldn't. He was restrained, he was bound to a chair, tightly, and no matter how much he pulled and jerked, his bonds were withstanding the strain.
"There, there," Simon said softly and laid a hand on Charlie's thigh, his naked thigh. Charlie tried to pull away, but he couldn't, his feet were restrained as well, with duct tape, just like his arms and upper body.
The other hand was cupping his cheek, or trying to, but Charlie pulled away, jerking his head to escape from the man's grip.
"Stop," he pleaded, and hearing the whiny sound of his own voice made him feel even more desperate and weak. He could feel tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
"Calm down, Charlie," Simon said with a voice that was so unctuous that it made the sickness in Charlie's stomach increase even further, making him feel like throwing up. "Or you might end up hurting yourself. Now why don't you leave that to me."
The hand went up higher on his thigh, pushing up his boxers, making him flinch when it lightly touched his member.
"Let me go," he begged, feeling the tears break free and run down his cheeks.
"Oh no. We've only just begun."
He pulled his hand away then and stood, and Charlie tried to catch his breath, to calm down. He still felt like throwing up.
He could sense Simon's gaze upon him, appraising him, and all he wished for was to disappear, to escape from his eyes, his hands. His words.
He'd sat down on the camp bed and started talking, adopting his lecture voice, and Charlie felt thrown back into his time in Princeton.
"I should thank you, Charlie," he said. "I hadn't planned on bringing you here so soon, I had some further games intended for our little foreplay. But when you so graciously presented me with an opportunity this morning to move things faster, I figured it would have been blasphemous of me not to listen to fate."
Charlie bit down his lip hard, trying to prevent further tears from forming. The awareness of his own stupidity was crushing him. He should have known it was reckless to just leave the house, without even telling anyone where he was going. But he hadn't wasted a second to debate his intention at the time, in fact, there hadn't really been any intention at all, and it had been hard to clearly grasp even one single thought. After having spent a restless night, he just hadn't been able to stand another second lying there in his bed. He'd felt as though the ceiling was about to come down on him, he'd felt compressed, like someone was pushing down on his chest hard, making it so difficult for him to breathe that he'd been afraid to suffocate. So he'd gotten up, trying to calm himself down, to find something to hold on to and lose this feeling of light-headedness. It still hadn't left him, though, he'd still been feeling as if he was having a fever, as if he was in a dream and not sure whether it was better or worse than reality, and so he'd fled, desperately searching for a place where he could breathe again.
It hadn't even occurred him that it might be dangerous, not in that moment. Then, when he'd reached the outskirts of the Angeles National Forest and had finally felt enough calm to sit down for a moment and collect his thoughts, his mind had cleared, dispelling the still stinging memories and bringing present events back into focus. It had been only then that he'd realized he should probably get back before anyone noticed his absence. His dad would be worried, and given how protective Don had been acting ever since the night before, he would be furious if he ever learned Charlie had left the house without his new personal bodyguard.
He remembered how his lips had twisted to a sad smile, knowing that Don only meant well and didn't realize that Charlie needed to prove that he could watch out for himself. He was no longer a little boy who could be easily transformed into someone else's puppet, he was more self-reliant now, and much better able to fight for himself. True, those threats had been scary, but they wouldn't bring him down, for he was a grown man now, he was able to take the measures needed to deal with this, and in the meanwhile, so he'd thought, he was well able to defend himself.
Clearly, that had been a mistake.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, his voice trembling.
He didn't dare looking at Simon, but from the sound of his voice, he could picture his face with his eye-brows raised in surprise. "Really, Charlie? I mean, how many more clues do you need?"
Charlie shook his head, trying to tell himself that this couldn't be happening. There was just no way anybody would be willing to hurt another human being in this way.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.
"Now that is a more interesting question."
In spite of himself, Charlie looked up. He'd heard the sneer in Simon's voice, but seeing the cruel grin on his face made the effect even worse. Still, that grin… It wasn't the creepy smile of sexual gratification and arousal, the one that Charlie had seen so many times in Simon's office. No, there was more to this, and all of a sudden, Charlie was intrigued. His mind finally had something to do, something other than processing the sensations streaming in on his body or obsessing over bad memories.
"What exactly is your plan?"
The grin widened, an ugly rictus of superiority. "I'm gonna break you."
Charlie shook his head. "You can't," he whispered.
"Trust me, I can, and I will. Maybe you don't realize it yet, but there is nothing more to give you hope. I have you now, and you'll be here with me until the day you die. And I don't care whether that'll be a week from now or a month or a year, but believe me when I say: I am going to break your will to live eventually." He bent forward, letting his teeth show when he smiled, like a big bad wolf. "Nobody is going to find you here. We have all the time in the world."
Charlie clenched his jaw, but tried to hide the fact that this little speech that had been designed to taunt him had actually given him his hope back, for he knew for a fact that Simon was wrong. Don was going to find him, Charlie was certain of that, and chances were that he would find him rather sooner than later. Don knew that Simon was behind the threats, he knew whom to suspect when Charlie didn't return home, and there was no doubt in Charlie's mind that Don would leave no stone unturned until he would have found him. No matter how pissed his brother was at him for creating this mess, he would never let him down. And given that Simon didn't seem to have a clue that he'd already become a suspect, Charlie hoped that he hadn't gone through great lengths to hide his connection to this place, so Don would either find him through that or at the latest when Simon would re-enter the real world to get provisions or go to work.
So all that Charlie had to do was to hold out until Don came to his rescue. Surely that was something he could do.
Simon stood, and for a moment, the panic was back, numbing his brain. He tried to fight it, though, he knew he had to use his mind, he needed to keep Simon talking, for as long as he was talking, there was less chance he would do… that.
"I still don't understand why you're doing this," he said, a little louder than necessary, trying to ignore the hand that Simon had put on his shoulder as he was rounding him, slowly.
"Oh, finally. So eventually you did figure out that I don't want you merely to satisfy my more primitive needs." He tilted his head. "Well, at least not the bodily needs."
Charlie swallowed thickly, staring into Simon's eyes who was now squatting in front of him, and it was as though he was seeing pure hatred in their depths.
"You ruined my life," Simon said, his tone low and menacing.
Charlie scoffed, the absurdity of his words almost making him laugh. "I think you got the direction of this relation wrong, Professor." He emphasized the last word, suddenly feeling invigorated by his own witticism, by his newly found power to fight back, and be it only with words.
Simon straightened himself again, but the cold stare remained. "That's always been your problem. Never could stop being such a smart-ass, always having to blurt out with your own ideas. No deference to age." He shook his head, and it was as though his hatred towards Charlie became almost palpable, like a mist filling the room. "You just couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you. You had to run to mommy and tell her everything, and after that, everything I had accomplished in my life just didn't matter anymore. And you're the one who took it all away, you're the one who got me convicted, and for that you'll pay."
At his last words, he unbuttoned his own jeans and took them off, throwing them on the bed without ever taking his eyes off Charlie. Then he came closer, slowly, bending down over him and gripping Charlie's arms on the chair's armrests so hard that it hurt. Charlie could smell his breath, the faint trace of peppermint mixed with the odor of sweat.
"Stay away from me."
The flicker of strength Charlie had experienced before was gone, he was back to begging. Appearing calm, preserving his dignity did no longer matter. All he wanted was for that pervert to stop and leave him alone.
"No, please don't," he whimpered when Simon pulled down his boxers, jerking and dragging them down his thighs until he had enough room for his hand.
"Stop it, please," Charlie cried, but in vain. Simon didn't stop, despite all his whining and pleading, not until he was finished.
When they called up Simon's work-place, an educational publishing company, they learned that he'd been on vacation for a week now and wouldn't return until the week after. Also his apartment in San Bernardino was empty and apparently had been empty for a couple of days now, according to his next-door neighbor. It was then that a full-blown panic took hold of Don. Yes, they knew who their culprit was, but he was gone, and he'd taken his little brother with him.
They checked if there were any other properties Simon may be using to hide out, but nothing had been listed in his name. It was already in the afternoon when they finally made the connection that made everything fall into place: Simon's wife.
Melissa Simon, who had recently changed her name back to her maiden name Mueller, which had made it a little complicated to find her, had recently moved back to Ohio, where she originated from. They'd lived separated for over a year now, but the divorce had only been finalized about a month ago, which, according to Megan, must have been the trigger to make Simon go against Charlie after all these years. But the fact that finally made Don hope again was that ever since Melissa Simon had moved back to her family, after her divorce had been finalized, the house that she had inhabited with her ex-husband before the separation, the house that was still listed under her name, seemed to be empty. A perfect place to hide a kidnapping victim.
"Let's go," Don said when he realized this had to be it.
"We don't have a warrant," Megan objected.
"We don't have time for that," Don tersely gave back and hit the button for the elevator more times and with more force than necessary.
He didn't say much on the car ride with an equally tight-lipped Colby on the passenger seat, only to work out the plan with David and Megan riding ahead of them. While Don had explained to them the main points of his plan on the way from their office down to the parking garage, they had agreed that the two of them, acting as a couple, would most likely appear non-threatening. Besides, there was a chance that Simon would recognize Don and be on the lookout if he just came up to his door asking if he could take a look around in his house, so they had to think of a little more elaborate ruse.
While Don and Colby were positioning themselves at the rear of the house, next to the back door, making sure they weren't being watched from one of the windows, they listened closely to the events on the front of the house. The second that they heard the crashing of metal that had to mean that Simon's mailbox had just become a victim of David's car, they tightened the grip around their guns, knowing that it was going to go down now.
They heard David and Megan step out of the car and spend a minute on inspecting the damage in case Simon was watching them from the inside before stepping up to the front door and ringing the bell.
Don closed his eyes with relief as he heard Simon open the door. That had been the most precarious part of their plan, but now that David and Megan had gained access to the house, everything should work out fine.
At least the first part did. As he and Colby could guess from the noises coming from the front door, their colleagues didn't even take a minute to overpower Simon. They could still hear Simon's protests when Megan came to the back door and opened it for them from the inside.
"I'll head back to David, I think Simon came from downstairs," she informed them while letting them in and Don and Colby took their cue and started the search of the house, starting in the basement.
Don hardly gained a glance on that despicable creature on the floor beside the front door and told himself not to think of how much it had done to his brother, not now at least, not before he'd found Charlie and made sure he was okay.
"Charlie?" he called out while he and Colby went down the stairs to the basement, weapons at the ready just in case that Simon hadn't been working alone.
There was no answer and Don felt his throat become even drier, making his voice sound strange when he called out a second time, "Charlie!"
They had reached the bottom of the stairs and inspected a store room full of canned products, but no Charlie inside. Don felt his jaw clench. They couldn't be wrong about this, they just couldn't…
They kicked open the next door and for a moment, Don was so overwhelmed by the sight that he was sure it was a dream, and he couldn't decide whether or not it was a nightmare. It was Charlie, alright, they had found him, but it was a sight that turned Don's stomach. He was bound to a chair, some kind of night stool as it seemed, his arms bound to the armrests with duct tape, just like his feet and upper body were fixed to the chair as well. Another strip of duct tape was stuck over his mouth so that they only heard his moaning now that the door was open. As it was, the duct tape was the only thing covering Charlie's skin apart from his boxers. The worst part, however, was the look in Charlie's pleading eyes. They were moist and at second glance, Don could see the faint traces of dried tears on his cheeks.
He was bending over him in an instant. "It's okay, buddy, you're safe now," he said. He'd been whispering, not deliberately, but he just hadn't found more strength in himself, not for talking.
While he was trying to get his professionalism back, he was thankful for Colby taking care of the more tactical proceedings. "We've got him!" he shouted upstairs towards Megan and David. "You can take him away!" He was doubly glad that Colby refrained from mentioning Simon's name.
"Let me take this off of you," Don continued when he'd found his strength again and started carefully pulling off the duct tape from Charlie's mouth while Colby was cutting through his other bonds. He could see the screaming pain in Charlie's eyes and as he removed the tape, he felt his brother's jaw tremble with suppressed emotion, but he tried telling himself it was all going to be fine eventually.
His hand was searching for a spot where it could comfort his brother without invading his personal space and finally settled for his arm. "Are you okay?" he then asked, still in a whisper, giving the wound on Charlie's forehead a worried look. Simon must have cleaned it and tended to it, but when Don thought back and saw that bloody rock in front of his inner eye, he was afraid that it might be worse than it looked. Apart from that, all injuries that Don could see were a couple of bruises on his torso, but since they had already turned blue, Don guessed that they were remainders of Charlie's accident two days ago.
As an answer to his question, Charlie gave him a nod, not looking him in the eye, and Don realized that 'okay' might have been too broad a term to use. Sure, maybe Charlie wasn't injured, not badly, but the wounds that had been inflicted on his soul might take him years to feel 'okay', if ever.
Don tried to push the thought aside. First things first. They needed to get Charlie out of here.
"Can you walk?" he asked and earned another nod.
He helped his brother stand and get into Colby's jacket that he'd taken off without a word. He could see that Charlie's legs were trembling, but after a few steps, he seemed steady enough. Still, Don made sure to stay right next to him, while he noticed in the back of his mind that Colby was staying behind.
The brothers made the way out of the house in silence, out the back, without ever setting eye on another human soul until they'd reached the safety of Don's car. Don stood by to offer assistance that, however, Charlie didn't bother to accept as he climbed onto the passenger seat. He was still quiet, still averting his eyes, and now that they had gotten him safely out of the house, those were the symptoms that were feeding Don's concern.
"Hey," he started, still in a low voice. He licked his lips, not knowing how to go on. He couldn't ask his brother again whether he was okay, he could see for himself that he wasn't, and he wouldn't even have needed to see him, for it was what common sense was telling him. But whether or not Charlie was okay right now, minutes after having been rescued from the clutches of his childhood predator, was not the issue that Don was struggling with. The real issue, the problem he needed to solve, was how to make sure that his brother would be okay eventually. And for that, as much as he hated himself for doing this, he needed to analyze the problem.
"What did he do to you?" he asked, still telling himself it was for Charlie's own good that he was asking the question, while in his heart, there was a little bastion of truth telling him that he was doing this just as much for himself, that he just had to know what that monster had done to his little brother.
Charlie was shaking his head and Don saw him swallow, apparently in an attempt to make his voice work again. When it came back, it was still husky, but at least he was speaking again. "Nothing."
Don bit his lip. He could see that Charlie was lying, he knew that pained expression in his eyes, and even if he didn't, he had evidence that 'nothing' wasn't what had happened. Charlie had hardly knocked himself out, or bound himself to that chair, and Don doubted he'd taken off his clothes willingly. So those were at least three things that Simon had done to him, three things that were definitely more than nothing.
The only question was, was there anything else he had he done to him?
"Charlie," he said, lowering his voice even further, "you can tell me. You know you can tell me anything."
Charlie shook off his hand, but kept looking straight ahead. "I told you, he didn't do anything."
Don was silent, biting his lip again. He knew this had been a mistake, he shouldn't have pressured his brother to tell him, not here, not now. However, before he found something to make this better again, he heard Colby coming up behind him.
"I found these stashed in the corner under the cot," he told them, gesturing at the pile of clothes he was holding in his arms with Charlie's shoes lying on top. "I figured you might want to put them back on."
"Thanks," Charlie replied quietly as he accepted the pile and got out of the car again.
"I'll head back out front to see if David and Megan need any help," was the pretext he then used to give the brothers some privacy.
"Thanks," Don said earnestly before turning back to Charlie. "Do you need help or can you do that on your own?"
Charlie's voice was still quiet somehow, but somewhat strange, and Don was relatively sure that it was the hint of cynicism lying underneath that gave him that impression. "Yes, Don, I can put on clothes on my own."
Don swallowed. He watched his brother cover his body again and while he did that, he felt as though there was a glass wall between him and Charlie that was growing thicker and thicker with every second spent in silence, with every second that Charlie chose to deal with this on his own. The thicker the wall grew, the more helpless Don felt, and the more desperate. How was he supposed to fix this, to fix Charlie, if his brother wouldn't even tell him what was wrong?
Charlie had stayed very quiet for the remainder of the day and not shown much willingness to talk about what had happened. On the other hand, when Don had taken him home, he had accepted not only his father's hug, but also Amita's. Yet, it had been silently agreed that she wouldn't stay for the night.
Now, one day after those troubling events, Don still wasn't clear on what exactly Simon had done to his brother, but he was hopeful to find out soon. Megan had just gone back to Charlie with his typed statement to make him sign it, and once he had, Don would finally know what exactly it was they had to deal with. He still wasn't sure what to think about the fact that when he'd asked him, Charlie had chosen her to conduct the interview and not Don, but in the end had told himself it was probably better this way. Megan had certainly been able to stay professional and calm during the interview, which was more than Don could say for himself.
"Are you sure you want to read it?" she now asked, the signed paper in her hands.
As an answer, Don took it from her, making sure it was what he'd been waiting for, before glancing up at Megan again. First things first. "Where's Charlie?"
"He went home," she told him, or at least Don thought that was what he'd heard.
"He what?!" he exclaimed, but Megan made no attempt of correcting herself. "And you just let him go?"
Megan, who'd sat down in the meanwhile and busied herself with organizing the items on her desk, as she usually did when she was nervous or agitated, stopped her task and turned around to him, looking him in the eye with an earnest expression on her face. "I think you should show some faith in him, Don. I know he went through a lot, but if you cared to look, you would realize that he's actually taking it relatively well."
"You don't know what you're talking about!" Don retorted with flaring anger. "You weren't there the last time!"
"And neither were you," she replied, her words hitting Don like a spear striking him in the middle of his heart and effectively putting him to silence. "I'm sorry, Don, but after everything that happened both now and then, I think it's clear what you're trying to do here. But no matter how much you try to helicopter Charlie, it's never going to change the past, so no matter how guilty you're feeling for not being there for him more at the time, I don't think mollycoddling him now is the right way to fix this."
Don was shaking his head. It was taking a moment until he found words to retort. Megan's spot-on diagnosis and the unexpectedness with which it had come had hit him rather hard.
"Still," he tried to hold his ground. He couldn't come up with a good point to make though, so instead, he pulled out his cell and tried to reach his brother. He anxiously waited while the beeps were almost hurting in his ear, not really knowing what he was about to say, when the beeps abruptly stopped. Charlie had rejected his call.
Don stared at his phone, thinking this might be some cruel scene from Déjà vu someone had planted on his mind.
"You need to give him some time, Don," Megan said calmly. "He's dealing with this, but he successfully dealt with it while he was still a kid, so you should trust him that he knows what he's doing. He's a grown man, and now that we have Simon arrested, there's nothing you need to protect him from."
"You know what, Megan," Don replied angrily, "how about you just mind your own damn business."
He knew he was being harsh, but he also wasn't willing to let it slide that Megan kept blurting out her opinions on everything and everyone no matter how many toes she stepped on while doing that. Where did she take the nerve from to tell him how to treat his brother?
And yet, while he took up her report, he realized that the main reason for his anger at her was rooted in his own insecurity, and in the realization of how truthful her observations were. She was right after all, he was trying to make amends for his less than optimal behavior back then, and what was worse, he still didn't have a clue how to do better.
He sighed and forced himself to tackle that problem one step at a time, to figure out how to help his brother, starting with reading the report of what he'd had to endure from the hands of his childhood molester. He bit his lip down hard as he went through the text. Charlie hadn't been raped, that was one thing. Everything else, however, left Don with a vicious fire burning in the pit of his stomach and consuming the last reserves he had, while his throat was drying out, apparently sending all the moisture to his eyes. He blinked it away, but the feeling of helplessness and loss remained.
His phone rang, and his alarm bells followed right after when he saw the caller ID.
"Charlie, what's wrong? Where are you?" he asked, noticing the panicked tone in his voice and trying to calm down. If his brother was upset, he needed to calm him down, so he needed to calm himself down first.
There was a second or two of silence at the other end that did nothing to help Don comply with his self-imposed task, but then Charlie's voice was there, still rattled and slightly subdued, yet sounding like his brother again, not like the distraught young man they'd rescued yesterday. "I'm sorry I didn't pick up earlier," he said, and it took Don a moment to figure out what he was talking about. "Why did you call?"
"I'm..." Don started, but didn't find anything but the truth. "I was just meaning to check up on you. I had been planning to take you home after your interview."
"I wanted to clear my head," Charlie gave back.
They were both silent for a minute until Charlie eventually said, "If that's all –"
"No," Don interrupted him. He knew it would probably be better to do this in person, but he also knew it would be better to do it rather sooner than later. And if Charlie kept avoiding him, this might be his last chance in a while.
Besides, he wasn't sure whether later, he'd have the courage to ask him this. "Charlie… why would you tell me he didn't do anything to you?"
He gripped his phone more tightly when his brother took a moment to answer, unsure whether he'd stepped over a line.
"Because it's the truth," Charlie then said.
Don shook his head, then held it in his hand, his eyes closed. "Charlie, I have the report right here in front of me. I know what he did."
"Then you know he didn't rape me."
Don opened his eyes again, and even though his sight was still blurry, the relevant parts from the report were jumping at him like vengeful beasts. The taunts, the touching, the hand job…
"You could have told me," he said, wishing his voice would sound stronger.
There was some more silence at the other end, then Charlie was back, sounding surprisingly matter-of-fact. "I wasn't planning on deceiving you. I just didn't think you'd consider it relevant."
For a moment, Don thought he would let his phone drop. "Why would you think that?"
This time, the silence took longer, and when Charlie's voice came back, there was a husky quality to it. "You didn't consider it relevant back then."
"I did –" Don tried to argue, but now that Charlie had started, he was adamant to finish his point, "You never even told me that you knew."
Don felt the heat rise to his head, and it came with an ardent wish to defend himself. "What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, buddy, how's it going, and by the way, how are you dealing with having been abused?'"
The words were hardly out when he regretted them already. He wouldn't have needed Charlie's reply to know that even though there was something right about his words, they were still wrong.
"Don't act like that. You've had plenty of opportunity."
"Yeah, and so did you," Don gave back, unable to put down his defense. "You never started to talk about it either if I'm not mistaken, did you?"
There was some silence at the other end and Don bit his lip again, closing his eyes in despair. He just couldn't get it right, could he?
"I'm sorry, buddy, I didn't mean that." His words were met with silence, so he fought to explain himself. "I'm just… I didn't know what to do. When it happened, I didn't think you'd want to talk about it, at least not to me, and when we grew closer… I don't know, it felt as though I had let you down already and I would just tear open old wounds. I know it's not a good excuse, but I just never found the right time to bring it up."
He swallowed thickly, wiping away the thin layer of sweat on his forehead when the silence on the other end stretched on longer than he could bear. Why wouldn't Charlie say something? Couldn't he at least give him the chance of making things right again?
"Actually," Charlie's voice came back then, although he had to clear his throat to bring it back fully. "Actually, I don't think it's such a bad excuse. I can relate to that better than you think." Some more silence, but this time, it didn't make Don feel nearly as bad, even though he would have never expected, much less hoped to hear the words his brother said next. "I'm sorry, Don, I didn't mean to put the blame on you. I know it wasn't your fault that I felt so alone with it then."
The spear that had been thrust through his heart earlier was removed now, and as the bleeding organ healed, the broken fibers left him with a tugging sensation while they were growing back together.
"You know," he said, finally feeling that it was the right thing to say, "whatever happens, you're not alone with it now."
He could hear the ghost of a smile in his brother's voice as his soft reply reached his ears. "Thank you." He could hear that there was more to come, so he waited. "So… see you at dinner tonight?"
As if the phone could transmit more than mere words, the ghost of a smile now appeared on Don's lips as well. "I'll be there," he promised.
Epilogue
When Charlie stepped off the elevator, he was feeling unpleasantly nervous, almost as nervous as he'd felt a month ago, when he'd helped the team finish up the serial killer case. It had been his first case after his ordeal hardly two weeks before that, and saying it had been hard to return to the FBI would have been an understatement. While he'd taken up his life at CalSci rather quickly and had actually felt good being back to his old self there, other things were still difficult for him to do. He didn't know how to act around his dad now that everything had been put back out in the open, and at first, it had been even worse with Amita. He'd been afraid of her reproach that he hadn't told her about all this before, but there had been none of that. Instead, Amita had shown an amount of patience and understanding that had threatened to humiliate him even further by having wasted even a second on doubting her devotion towards him, and in the end, the effect of her learning the secret he'd never meant to share had been a strengthening of their bond that took them both by surprise. True, it had taken some time until Charlie felt safe enough to return to a physical level with her, but on an emotional level, they had become so closely knit that Charlie was sure nobody would ever be able to tear them apart.
So the only part of his life that had still been damaged by Simon had been his consulting for the FBI, and until his return, Charlie had been certain it would remain damaged for good, if not destroyed. To tell the truth, he'd been horrified about facing the team again, for he'd been convinced that after everything that had happened, something in their dynamics with him had changed, without any possibility to change it back to the way things had been before, to a time when Charlie had finally felt accepted by them as some sort of equal. Now, however, that they not only knew everything about the kidnapping, but also about what had happened while he'd been in Princeton, he'd been afraid that they would never stop seeing him as a victim.
If it hadn't been for David and Colby to reach out to him and ask for his help, if they hadn't made it clear to him how close they'd come to finally catching the serial killer and that they were afraid he might vanish again if it wasn't for Charlie's help, he might not have come back, at least not for another couple of weeks. As it was, however, he was glad that he had, for they had actually been able to finally arrest that man, and during it all, the team had been treating him reassuringly normal, so Charlie hoped that his nervousness today was just as groundless as it had been then.
"Hey, Charlie, how's it going," David greeted him in passing, and Charlie felt a piece of his anxiety crumble away.
"Hello, Don," he greeted his brother a little formally when he'd reached his cubicle, not knowing what reaction to expect from him.
Don whirled around. "Charlie, hey! What are you doing here?"
Charlie couldn't tell whether he was glad or annoyed to see him, all he could detect was that Don was surprised.
"I thought I'd bring you some lunch," he said and held up the paper bag he'd picked up from Don's favorite place around the corner. "Yesterday, when you skipped dinner, Dad mentioned that you were pretty stressed with your newest case, and I thought you should at least have something proper to eat."
Don frowned, but it seemed to be a happy frown. Surprised, sure, but happy. "Wow, thanks, that's really thoughtful of you."
Charlie handed him over the bag and sat down on Megan's vacant chair. He waited until his brother had started eating before he approached the subject that had really brought him here. He knew that Don was much easier to talk to when he wasn't on an empty stomach.
"I was wondering..." he started. "Is there anything I could do to help on that case?"
He watched his brother attentively, so he couldn't miss the quick, appraising glance that Don was giving him. "No, I don't think so."
True, Don was always hard to read, but Charlie had known him long enough to spot an outright lie as this one. Or at least to be quite sure. Well, relatively sure.
Maybe he should find a more gradual strategy instead of accusing his brother of lying point blank.
"What's this case about?" he asked.
Don shrugged. "Just a case," he said evasively.
"Hey Don?" Colby, apparently just returning from his lunch break, stuck his head inside the cubicle. "Our tech guys say they can't take those videos down without shutting down the whole site, and then we'll have no way of going after the customers. Hey, Charlie." From the deadly look Don gave him, Colby seemed to realize that he had revealed more of the case than Charlie was supposed to hear, so he made an awkward exit. "I'll help Megan with that list then."
Charlie could feel his jaw tense as he tried to stay calm. "Internet crime?" he asked.
"Yeah," Don replied low-voiced.
He didn't share anything else, but Charlie could put two and two together. "A porn website?"
"Child pornography," Don specified with a sigh that revealed he knew he had lost.
Somehow, however, Charlie felt as though he had lost as well. He was silent for a moment and could sense his jaw tense up further while he tried to suppress the burning feeling of rejection. "And you didn't think there was anything I could do to help you with that?" he asked in a low voice, knowing fully well that both he and Don knew the answer to that.
Don gave another deep sigh and bent forward to enable them to talk more quietly. "Look, Charlie, I just didn't think it would have been a good idea. You should look after yourself first before putting yourself in such a position."
This time, it took Charlie longer to control his emotions and the hurt, but also because he tried to bring order to his thoughts before sharing them with Don.
"You know, Don," he said when he thought he had summoned up enough strength to see this through, "after everything that happened, it really wasn't easy for me to come back to consult for you."
"I thought you wanted –"
"I do," Charlie interrupted him, "but that's not the point. The point is that I only came back because I thought…" He bit his lip. He felt both stupid that he'd believed that and disappointed that he'd been wrong. "I thought you still respected me."
Don leaned forward even further then, putting a hand on Charlie's knee. "What are you talking about? I respect the hell out of you, we all do."
Charlie scoffed. "Yeah, I can see that. You respect me so much you don't think I can handle this."
Don shook his head. "Charlie, it's not a question of whether you can handle this, it's if you should have to! And I…" His eye-brows were drawn together then and emotion was entering his voice. "I don't think you should. All I'm trying to do is spare you as much pain as I can."
Charlie looked him in the eye and could feel that those words were the truth. Of course they were the truth, and if he had taken the time to actually think about his brother's motives, he would have seen that. Everything that Don had done for the past couple of weeks had been an attempt to make things easier for him and to be there for him if he needed someone to talk to.
"Thank you," he said quietly, ashamed that he had doubted his brother after everything he'd done for him. "I'd really like to help you on that case, though."
From the way Don pressed his lips together, Charlie could tell what he was thinking, and he hurried to explain himself. "I think it might be good for me. I…" He hesitated. This was difficult. He'd never talked to Don about something like this, actually, he'd never talked about this to anybody, at least not outside therapy.
He took a deep breath, then started explaining. "When Professor Simon did those things to me at Princeton, I kept thinking that things would be better once I'd grow up, that he wouldn't have dared doing this to someone who wasn't still a child. And that's also what I kept thinking when I consulted on cases that involved such matters, I felt I just had to help the… you know, the victims, because I knew they couldn't properly defend themselves, so even though it wasn't always easy, I had a really strong motivation to work on those cases. And working on them made me feel good, empowered somehow, as if that could somehow make better what I'd let Simon do to me then. Now..."
He broke off. A lump had risen to his throat. He tried to swallow it away, but it remained, rendering his voice husky. "Now that he managed again, I feel..." He broke off again, started anew. "I mean, I know that I'm stronger now than when I was a child, I know that I'm in a much better position to defend myself against men like him, both physically and concerning power. But sometimes… sometimes it still feels like I'm that little boy again who can't defend himself. And then you come and say I'm not strong enough to help those children who are experiencing things similar to what I have."
"Oh Charlie, I never meant –"
"I know you didn't," Charlie interrupted him quickly, not wanting Don to feel guilty for something he'd only done to protect him. "That's just how it feels."
Don was silent for a moment. "I never meant to shut you out, buddy, believe me. I just didn't want you to feel obliged to deal with something you weren't ready for."
"I am ready for this," Charlie stated decidedly.
"Okay," Don said tentatively. "So… if you really think you want to do this, I certainly won't stand in your way. We can definitely use some help with this."
"Okay," Charlie replied and let out a deep sigh of relief. This had gone much better than he'd imagined, and the fact that he'd had the courage to confront Don about this, that he'd found a way to solve his problems instead of shutting his eyes and hoping they would go away on their own like he would have done back then, actually made a smile appear on his lips. "So… show me what you have?"
Don nodded, but there was obviously something else on his mind, something he needed two attempts for before saying it. "Just promise me… If this… If it gets too much for you, you need to tell me."
The smile on Charlie's face grew more secure. "I will. But Don – I'm not about to let him win. I won't let what he did to me dictate my life, nor determine what I can or can't do."
Now, finally, a smile appeared on Don's face as well. "Good," he said as he put a hand on his shoulder. He swallowed, but he still seemed to have a lump in his throat when he added fondly, "You know, I've gotta say, I've never been so glad about your pig-headedness."
- finis -
A/N: I'm sorry if this story felt a little cramped, but I hope you still enjoyed. I simply couldn't resist trying to implement Deleted717's idea about Lecher on top of the Threatened plot, so thanks again for that inspiration!
