Disclaimer: Sure, none of us is getting any younger, but you should still be able to remember that I don't own Numb3rs or its characters, and that any names, characters, places or incidents are either a product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
There's also a reference to 3-23 Money for Nothing, so I guess SPOILER ALERT for that episode (and AU).
Timeline: Surprise! Season 6! …Just kidding. Of course we're back to our good old, nice and comfy season 3.
Rating: We can argue about whether it should be T or M, but I'd like to advise reader discretion. If the first paragraph doesn't drive you away though, you should be fine.
A/N: I'm sorry that this story contains a couple of topics that we've explored before, but it is the 25th story in this series.
Youth
"So, Spring Break, huh?" Colby asked with a powerful pat on Charlie's back. "What are you gonna do, going somewhere?"
"What do you think I'm gonna do?" Charlie gave back with a laugh. "Work, mostly. I'm the teacher, not the student, remember? And I guess what little time still remains of the day, I can rely on Don to have some use for that."
"You know that's right," Colby said with a grin as they entered the conference room.
"Charlie, hey, I'm so glad you could make it," Don greeted him, seeming rather stressed. "We could really use your help on this one."
"Told ya," Colby threw over his shoulder as he flung himself into a chair.
Don briefly drew his eye-brows together, but other than that ignored the comment. "We've been asked to investigate a child pornography ring," he started presenting their newest case to his team, which immediately got them all sobered-up. "Our Organized Crime Division has been working on that for a couple of weeks now, and they've done some groundwork, but since we're looking at a fairly small organization and they're swamped as it is, we were asked to take over while the case is still hot. As far as we can tell at this point, the services for clients are only provided online, and the videos all seem to be produced and uploaded by the owners of the website, who we still can't identify. They tried to trace the online activity back to their servers, but they're using so many proxy servers and so much encryption that Organized Crime just couldn't get through. I was wondering whether maybe you had an idea to trace them back?" he interrupted his report to quizzically turn to Charlie.
Charlie thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I'd first have to see how exactly this website works. I mean, usually I'd do what I assume your Organized Crime Division did, which unfortunately many criminals have found ways to work around, but maybe I can think of something else, something a little outside the box. It's a stretch, though."
"Just take a look at it and tell us what you think," Don said with a serious nod that showed that he wasn't getting his hopes up. "But even if that doesn't work, I have something else in mind you might be able to do for us. Because while Organized Crime wasn't able to get any usable information from the background sceneries shown in the videos, since there isn't much to be seen, they were able to identify one of the victims."
He pulled up the picture of a boy of Afro-American descent, who couldn't be more than 14 years old.
"That's Dillon Taylor," Don explained. "He was a member of the 52nd Street Gang, he even had their tattoo. That's what made Organized Crime look into the gang, because they'd seen the tattoo in one of the videos and figured that not too many kids his age would have that. They didn't find him though until earlier this week, when he was found dead and identified as the boy in the video."
"How did he die?" David asked.
"He was shot. The LAPD assumes it was a gang shooting." Don paused for a moment, pressing his lips together and shaking his head. "He was only twelve years old when he died, he would have turned 13 next week."
Charlie closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, but could still see Dillon's face in his mind. He was having trouble accepting that they were talking about something that had really happened, right there, in the same city they were living in, because it seemed to be a story from another world, one that wasn't even real. It was just so hard to imagine that this kid should have been dead because he'd been shot by gangbangers, most of which probably weren't much older than Dillon himself. Kids killing other kids… it just seemed so pointless.
"They talked to his mother and learned that Dillon had been trying to get out of the gang," Don continued somberly, before Charlie had time to sink further into a depression about the injustice of the world, "and apparently, they didn't want him to go through with that. She also told them that Dillon had been spending most of the past few weeks in a youth center in South Park. Since that was the time that we believe the video of him we found online was made, it's reasonable to assume that that's where our suspects find their victims, or that it's at least one of their hunting-grounds. That's why we should see if we can positively identify the rooms used for the videos as belonging to that youth center, and we should also try to figure out if maybe other kids from this place show up on the website."
He paused and gave Charlie a look that was both apologetic and pleading. "This is where you'd come in," he then said with a certain caution. "The videos don't show the faces of the victims, but I remember you once mentioned this people identification project you'd been consulting on that works with motion and everything and where you don't need the faces, and I figured… I thought maybe, that might help us here, maybe you could somehow crosscheck the victims in the videos with photo and video material from the youth center, starting with the ones where the videos have been taken in the same room as Dillon's."
Charlie nodded thoughtfully and was about to tell his brother that this was actually a pretty good idea, before he paused, suddenly realizing what Don's idea entailed. "That would mean I'd also have to go through the video footage from the website."
"Yeah," Don admitted in a low voice. "Look," he then said, "I know I can't make you do it, I'm not even sure I want you to, but I… Well, I just can't see another way to identify the victims, not within a reasonable amount of time."
"Yeah," Charlie said slowly, "I can see that." His mind was racing and he swallowed thickly in an attempt to buy more time to make a decision. Granted, the prospect of having to analyze the video footage they were talking about left him with an uneasiness that settled in his guts like an angry beehive, making him nauseated. Then again, he realized that it wasn't really a contest, was it? If his work could help the FBI identify more victims and thereby enable them to shut this website down and stop further abuse from happening, he just had to bite the bullet and do what needed to be done. This wasn't about him, this was about those children whose life had been made a living hell, and if Charlie had only so much as reason to hope he might contribute to stop that hell for them, he just had to do everything that lay in his power.
"Okay," he said and cleared his throat when the word came out as a hardly identifiable croaking sound. "I guess I'll get right to that then. I should be busy with sorting through the video footage from the website for the remainder of the day, but the sooner I get some pictures from the youth center for the database I'm going to build, the better." He thought for a minute. Now that his decision had been made, he tried concentrating on the technical details. "I think the best solution would be for me to go to that youth center and build the database there. I figure they're gonna have a bunch of pictures without any names on them or where it's difficult to match who's who, I might need someone working there to help me, especially if they have video footage."
"We can do that," Don said, the relief visible on his face and in his posture. "David and Colby are going to take you there tomorrow. Just tell us what data you need and we'll make sure you're gonna get it."
Charlie nodded and let his gaze wander back to Dillon's picture on the screen, feeling a shudder run down his spine. At the same time, he was strengthened in his decision There was a look in Dillon's eyes that just didn't seem right. These weren't the eyes of a twelve-year-old, or they shouldn't be. The eyes of a twelve-year-old should be joyful and curious and show an eagerness to explore life and conquer the world. What Charlie saw, however, was a seriousness that made him sad, and he felt his heart bleed at imagining what must have happened to this young boy in the twelve years of his life to put that somber look in his eyes. He didn't want to imagine, and in a way, he knew he didn't have to, for he knew that at least some of the reasons that had destroyed the joy in those eyes had been recorded on tape.
He was so not looking forward to working on this case.
"Field trip!" Colby exclaimed with deliberately exaggerated cheerfulness as he hopped onto the driver's seat.
"Yeah, about that," Charlie replied, "I mean, not to complain, but why exactly are you coming along, and then both of you?"
"Because you're not only a handful, you're four hands full," Colby deadpanned. "So you need two babysitters watching you."
The look on Charlie's face, which Colby could see in the rear-view mirror, was skeptical, but there was also plenty of insecurity in it, which told Colby that he had reached his goal.
"Don't let him mess with you," David came to Charlie's rescue far too soon. "We still have plenty of witness interviews to conduct there, so you can rest assured we won't be in your way while you gather your data. We'll make sure though to always stay in your vicinity, just in case."
With that, the matter was settled for the moment and the rest of the ride was spent with meaningless banter, even though Colby realized that Charlie wasn't really participating in it, looking out of the window instead.
"Alright then," Colby said when they'd arrived. "You are to work with Steven Pollack, Charlie, he's been working here for several years and knows most of the kids who come here, so he should be able to help with the identification and also show you all the documents you might need. I'm not sure how much footage you've watched, but we assume that some of the videos are much older than others, we guess up to ten years or so."
Charlie nodded. "Yeah, I had the same impression," he said.
Colby regarded him for a moment, finally understanding the reticence Charlie was showing today. And he had to admit, watching those videos had been anything but fun, and Charlie had probably sorted through a lot more footage than Colby.
"Anyway, we suspect that some of those videos may have been on another website before they were uploaded on this new one. These things shut down and crop up incessantly. Anyway, we too have a couple more questions for Pollack, so we're gonna make the introduction and then we'll be busy with talking to the staff and kids, maybe for an hour or two. You okay with that?"
"Sounds good," Charlie nodded, though with a little less eagerness and more graveness than usual.
It took them another minute before they found themselves in front of a closed office door. They knocked and few seconds later, it was opened, and they were faced with a rather tall man whose dark hair was starting to turn gray above the ears. He had to be pushing sixty, but he still seemed remarkably fit. What impressed Colby more than anything though was the man's presence. It might have been the height along with his posture, maybe in combination with the look in his eyes, but wherever it came from, this man managed to exude an air of calmness and trust that probably made him one of the most popular workers around here.
"Mr. Pollack, nice to meet you," David greeted the man and shook his hand. "I'm Special Agent David Sinclair, we talked on the phone. This is my colleague, Special Agent Colby Granger, and this is the consultant we talked to you about, Professor Charles Eppes, he'll be doing the analysis with you."
"Pleasure to meet you," Pollack said with an affable smile and stretched out his hand first towards Colby, then towards Charlie.
Charlie's hand, however, didn't reciprocate the gesture, which made Colby turn his head sideways, and what he saw even made him shrink back a little. Charlie seemed as though he was set in stone, he was staring at Pollack as though he was seeing a ghost, and yet, if Colby wasn't mistaken, the man before them was very much human and very much alive.
"Charlie, you okay there?" he asked under his breath and lightly touched the mathematician at his arm.
Charlie flinched and his head jerked towards Colby, but that stony expression was still on his face.
Colby waited for him to say something, to explain what the hell was going on with him, but he didn't.
"So, Mr. Pollack," David tried to gloss over the awkward moment, but his words came out a little too loud. "How long have you been working here again?"
Pollack's eyes went from Charlie to David and the frown on his forehead was lessening slightly. "Let me think… Fif-, no, sixteen years this summer. I must say, I think I may have become what they call an institution in this place." His smile was back, one that seemed a little self-conscious and that made him seem quite modest. "I think I should remember most of the kids that have come here over the years, at least the ones who came here more or less regularly. I just hope that's going to help you with your investigation."
His gaze had moved back to Charlie at his last words, but the mathematician still hadn't recovered his wits – or his courtesy. "I'm sorry," he mumbled before he turned around and left the way they'd come.
David and Colby exchanged a quick glance and wordlessly agreed on how to proceed, now that Charlie had decided to thwart their agenda.
"Please excuse our colleague," David went on before he made up an explanation for what they still had no explanation for, "he's been feeling a little unwell."
"Oh! I'm sorry to hear that," Pollack said with a tinge of concern showing on his face. "Maybe he would like to lie down? We have a sickbay downstairs."
"I'll go check on him in a minute," Colby assured the man. "Just one question though, I'd like to talk to Mrs Svenson afterwards…?"
"She has her office just down the hall on the right," Pollack replied attentively, "though I think she's planned on coming in late today."
"Alright, thanks. I'll get going then," Colby said and took his leave while David stayed with Pollack to start gathering at least some of the footage that they'd come here for.
In the meanwhile, Colby made his way outside while keeping his eyes open for a certain mathematician and trying to keep his tension at bay. A mantra was repeating in his mind along the way, directing him: first learn, then act. He first needed to figure out what was going on before he could decide what to do next and react to the events playing out in the world. The part in between, the theorizing, was something that would just make him lose his focus and otherwise lead to nothing.
In the end, it wasn't hard to spot Charlie. He was sitting on one of the large rocks skirting the parking lot. It was a little harder though to determine the state he was in. He was bending over, his elbows resting on his knees, and his face was hidden by his hands and by his curls.
Then again, Colby had always been good at interrogations.
"Hey," he said and sat down next to Charlie, who didn't move an inch. Colby managed to swallow down the 'What the hell just happened in there?' that had been lying on his tongue and replace it with a more empathetic approach that would probably be the wiser strategy with the mathematician. "You okay?"
There was no reaction. Charlie remained sitting there, breathing heavily. Actually, now that Colby's attention had been attracted by the fact, he had to admit that the breathing seemed quite worrisome, almost as though Charlie was about to hyperventilate.
"Charlie?" He swallowed, suddenly unsure what to do. "Should I call an ambulance?"
And then, a reaction after all, a slight shake of the head. Which still didn't tell Colby what to do.
"Look, Charlie, either you tell me what's going on, or you snap out of it, but if something's wrong, you need to talk to me."
The breathing went on, still laborious, but if Colby could trust his senses, he'd say it had become a little more regular since he'd come here. Still, Charlie's behavior remained far from normal and his speech less than eloquent.
Colby heaved an irritated sigh and stood. He hesitated for a moment, regarding the mathematician and not knowing what to say.
"I can't," Charlie finally gave him a reply, but it came with such a great time offset that Colby had to think for a second before he remembered what his friend was replying to. When he did, the irritation was back. Would have been too good to be true if Charlie had actually decided to do some explaining, now wouldn't it.
"Alright, so go ahead, stay here and do whatever it is you're doing," Colby eventually decided. His patience had run out. "I'm gonna go back inside and do at least part of what we came here for to do, and you're just gonna wait for David and me to come back, got it?"
He shook his head with a huff when Charlie's whole reaction was a wordless nodding of his head.
"So should we drop you off at CalSci or what?" Colby asked and Charlie could hear the annoyance in his voice. He'd been aware of their annoyance ever since they had returned from talking to Pollack and the other staff members, but the mere awareness hadn't been enough to make this go away. He still felt as though he was imprisoned in his own self, and no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't get out. At the same time, a part of him was standing beside himself, watching that wimp that just couldn't pull himself together, and shouting at him to jerk out of it.
"You know what, forget it," he heard Colby mutter under his breath, but kept looking out of the window, never turning his head. They'd let him ride shotgun this time, maybe because they were afraid he was about to get sick, maybe because they wanted to keep an eye on him.
It took him another minute before he could say the words he knew he had to say, and he still couldn't look at them. "I'm sorry."
He heard Colby turn his head towards him, then back to face the street, but he was saying nothing, and neither did David.
He took a deep breath, making a decision. "I'm gonna explain everything to you, I just… I'd like to wait until we're at the FBI. I'd like to only say this once."
After that, he was silent, concentrating on his trembling hands and on the rapid beating of his heart.
The rest of the ride was spent mostly without talking and in a way, Charlie was glad he had some time to lay out the words in his mind. On the other hand, he felt his apprehension grow the closer they were coming to Don's office, and he would have simultaneously liked to just stop the flow of time and to get it over with as quickly as possible.
As it was, the moment of truth came sooner than he'd anticipated, and before he knew it, they were sitting in one of the conference rooms, waiting for Megan and Don to join them.
"Hey, great, you're already here," Don greeted them as they strode into the room and took a seat. "So how did it go at the youth center?"
Charlie felt Colby's sour look upon him before the agent said, "Why don't you ask Charlie?"
Don frowned, turning his head towards him, and Charlie instantly felt his throat go dry. He hated to fall short of other people's expectations, and he especially hated to fall short of Don's. Even though he thought his brother would understand, he still wasn't sure, and his anxiety about Don's reaction was feeding his apprehension that had already accumulated to the size of a full-grown monster having taken a hold of his body from the inside, centering in his guts.
"Why, what happened?" Don asked, lacking understanding, and Charlie's fear that this lack would remain even once he would have finished his story was growing further.
"Look," he started, but had to clear his throat. The croaking that had come out of his mouth wouldn't do him any good, not now when he had to make sure to get all this over with as smoothly as possible. "I'm sorry, it's true that I kind of spaced out there for a moment." He could see David's and Colby's raised eye-brows and quickly corrected himself, but still felt the heat shoot to his head. "Alright, so it was more than a moment. But I…" He took a deep breath, then stated what he knew had to be the truth, "I'm pretty sure he's involved."
The frown was back on Don's face, even deeper than before. "You mean that, what was his name, Pollack?" He exchanged a glance with his co-workers, then turned back to him with barely concealed skepticism, "How do you figure?"
"Because I..." He hesitated, then took another deep breath. This was the moment of truth. "I recognized him."
"From where?" Don asked, still with that look of confusion on his face that was slowly turning into annoyance, the longer it was taking Charlie to come forward with his story. Time to stop his annoyance.
"From when we were kids," he told his brother, looking him in the eye firmly, trying to convey the message with that glance. Don, however, still hadn't taken the hint, so he had to go through with it, all the way.
He took another breath, noticing that it was rather shaky, and looked down at his hands. Only now, he realized that he must have picked up a pen earlier and had been fidgeting with it the entire time. He decided to let it stay in his hands, to give both his eyes and his hand something to keep themselves busy with, something other than this dark place his mind was about to go to.
"It was Don's thirteenth's birthday," he started and noticed that his voice was now shaking too, but decided that it couldn't be helped. "We'd been camping, but I… well, I left," he said, quickly going on. "I was planning to walk back home, but it was night, and then suddenly, there was a car next to me. The driver, he subdued me and took me with him, and… anyway, it was him." He swallowed, fighting to get the name out. "Pollack."
He could hear the silence, it was a roaring, droning silence, but he couldn't look up to see their faces, he kept his eyes on his trembling hands that were still fidgeting with the pen, feeling his face become red and hot with humiliation.
"Buddy," he could hear Don's voice, and he could hear the gentleness in it, but it was too much, as though Don was about to deliver some bad news. "I'm so sorry you were taken back to that night. But that was over twenty years ago," Don continued in a tone as though it hurt him to say those words, and yet, Charlie could feel they were going to hurt him. "You were just a kid then. How can you be so sure it was him?"
Charlie's head came up, and he was looking at his brother, staring at him, trying to figure out whether Don was really saying what Charlie thought he was saying. "I recognized him," he repeated, feeling his voice getting even more unstable. Why would Don do that to him? Why would he have him go through all this, through the humiliation of laying everything out before everybody, just to say that he didn't believe him? "I told you I recognized him!"
"I know, buddy," Don said and put a hand on Charlie's shoulder, a hand that Charlie instantly shook off, a hand that he couldn't trust anymore. "I know," Don repeated as though that would make his words come true. He was silent for a moment and Charlie watched him moisten his lips before he went on, "It's just that –"
"Just what?" Charlie interrupted him, loudly, but unable to hold himself back. What was going on here? Why was Don acting as though Charlie was making everything up? Why didn't he believe him?
"In all these years, I've never heard you talk about this, I've never even heard you mention it. All I'm saying is that it's difficult to be sure after all these years, especially when you seem to have forgotten all about it for most of the time."
Now, Charlie was sure he was just getting him wrong, or he wanted to be sure. At the same time, though, he knew that he'd understood his brother quite well. And yet, he didn't understand, he didn't understand this world anymore. Why would Don say something like that? Why would he hurt him so much?
"You're thinking I'd forgotten all about this?"
He could see Don bite his lower lip and look at him searchingly, but even while he did that, there was an answer there already, there was a pain in his big brother's eyes that hadn't been there before, a pain that somehow managed to calm Charlie down a little.
"I'm sorry," Don whispered.
He was looking at Charlie with eyes that seemed to have been taken from someone else. They were filled with insecurity, with a kind of plea that Charlie had never seen there before. He tried to decipher the look, but he couldn't, not before Colby's voice broke the spell. "I'm sorry I have to ask," he said before he added in an even more serious tone, "I really am, Charlie. But I'm still not sure why you think Pollack's in on this. Even if he's the guy from your past, kidnapping and child pornography are still two very different animals."
Charlie closed his eyes. "Do I really have to explain to you what the connecting factor is?" he asked in a low voice that was trembling with built-up tension.
Don shook his head. "But that's the thing, buddy. Your kidnapping was about ransom, that's something entirely different."
Charlie frowned, as much at Don's words as at the conviction with which they were uttered. "Who told you that?"
Don was returning the frown, and his conviction was gone, replaced by fear. "Mom and Dad."
When Charlie remained silent, Don went on, even more insecure, "That was what this whole thing had been about. He'd kidnapped you, and while we were waiting for a ransom note, the police found you and brought you home."
Charlie was shaking his head, wordlessly staring at his brother.
"But Mom and Dad –"
"They lied to you," Charlie interrupted him, realizing his voice was still trembling. "They knew it never was about ransom."
"No, hold on –"
"They lied to you," Charlie repeated with more force. "He'd taken my clothes with him, Don. When the police found me, I was naked. I was still wearing nothing but a police jacket when Mom and Dad picked me up from the station." He felt a shudder run down his spine, feeling as though he was eight again, sitting there among the police officers with nothing but the thin jacket over his shoulders, a jacket whose hem he kept tightly wrapped around his thighs. He closed his eyes and swallowed, trying to push the memories down, deep down where nobody would find them.
It wasn't working.
His eyes shot open then, targeting his brother, and he waited until he had his attention before he spoke, "You really think I could have forgotten about that?"
He saw his brother bite down his lower lip, saw him struggle to get his ability of speech back. "I'd hoped you had," he finally whispered, his eyes still beholding that pained confliction, the reluctance to believe what Charlie was saying, but reluctance or not, Charlie could tell that Don finally believed him.
So now what?
His chin was starting to tremble and at the same time, he could feel the pressure on his chest, pushing against his throat from all sides, making it hard for him to breathe, to take deep and regular breaths. It was out now, he'd laid it all out before them, but where was the point? What had he accomplished by going through this humiliation other than a renewal of his pain?
"Charlie," he heard Megan's voice, but couldn't look up at her, had to keep staring at his hands that had become a little blurry. Only now he realized that the pen that he'd been twisting was broken, and try as he might, he couldn't remember when that had happened. He couldn't even try to remember, for his mind was completely tied up in his efforts to stick to the present and to process all the sensations rushing in on him, like the feeling of their eyes on him, like the way Megan was talking to him. Her tone was the same as Don's, sympathetic, but with that kind of condescension that not only told him he was wrong, but that also told him it had all been in vain.
"I'm so, so sorry for what Pollack did to you," Megan continued. "And I'm glad you told us. If he really is what you say he is, we are going to find out and bring him to justice." Charlie heard the 'but' even before she said it. "But we still can't be sure he's responsible for the crimes we're looking at. The MO is different, the motives are different, the offender's profiles are different."
"So what?" Charlie asked and brought his head up, forcing himself to look her directly in the eye. He wouldn't be a coward any longer. "What are you going to do about that now?"
The agents exchanged glances, which was doing nothing to make Charlie feel better about this.
"Can't you see that Pollack is behind all this?" he exclaimed when the feeling of betrayal became too strong to be suppressed any longer. "He's been hurting children for years now, and now that we finally have the chance to stop him, you just want to sit around and not do a thing about that?!"
"Charlie, please –"
"What!" he cut his brother off, not wanting to hear his pacification. "I'm telling you, he's behind this, why won't you believe me?!"
"We can check him out once again," Megan eventually said, making sure to speak both calmly and clearly, as though she was talking to an unstable person. "But I'd like to advise you not to get your hopes up. I just don't think he's involved in this."
Charlie nodded, slowly, understanding that he was done here, that he couldn't hope to find support among the agents. "Alright. I guess I'll better get going then."
"Charlie –" Don tried to hold him back, but he didn't have the nerve for that right now.
"I'll get back to you about those videos," he chose a deliberately professional good-bye. Hearing the unsteady sound of his voice, however, he knew he shouldn't hesitate another moment to take his flight and go somewhere else, anyplace where people weren't looking at him like this, where he wasn't hurt or ridiculed or judged.
"Damn it, Charlie, can't you leave us alone even for a minute?"
"But Dad said –" Charlie tried.
"I don't care what Dad said! Can't you see we're kind of in the middle of something here? Why do you always have to ruin everything?"
"I wasn't meaning to –"
"Well, you are!" Don interrupted him before he had finished. "Just go back to Dad, or… I don't know, just go!"
Charlie wanted to protest, but his throat was closed up, and he could feel the tears spring to his eyes. He tried to swallow them down, for he could see how Don's friends were looking at him, how their lips twitched to a haughty grin, how they were just waiting for him to start crying. He wouldn't do that though, not in front of them.
Or at least, that was the plan. His body, however, had an idea of his own, and when Charlie realized the tears were about to spill despite his best intentions, he quickly turned around and ran back, towards the fireplace.
He was still in the forest when he stopped. He could see his dad go about the fire through the trees, and part of him wanted to run into his arms and indulge in the comfort of his strong embrace and his soothing voice. Another part, however, was afraid. His dad had made it very clear that he didn't want him around the fire while he was preparing the barbecue, and Charlie had to admit that his dad had a point when he said that Charlie's fondness of experimenting with fire tended to cause scenarios that they did not want to have here, near the forest. So sure, he understood that Dad had wanted him to go with Don, but the fact that his dad had not taken into account was that Don didn't want him here, and that was the fact that hurt Charlie more than anything else.
'Don't cry,' he told himself when he felt his nose itch and his throat close up again, but it was too late. The tears were coming and couldn't be stopped, and Charlie stumbled along the edge of the forest, making sure to stay hidden, to remain within the shadows of the trees until he'd found a place where he was alone, where nobody would hear him cry, especially not Don.
He just didn't get it. Why did Don hate him so much? Charlie could try all he wanted, all he ever accomplished was irritating Don and getting on his nerves and make him hate him even more.
And it wasn't just Don. Everybody hated him, nobody wanted him here, and Charlie just didn't know what else to do. He was tired of fighting for their approval and getting nothing but rejection in return, he was tired of getting told that he was too young, too small, too annoying.
He was sobbing and hiccuping, but as his crying was growing less and he could see the campsite clearer again, he knew that he couldn't go back there. And why should he? Nobody wanted him there, least of all Don, and it was his birthday, after all. Why should he go to a birthday he wasn't invited to, where he wasn't even welcome? No, he would go someplace where people didn't hate him, where he was loved, in fact the only place where he was loved, and that was home.
With the back of his hand, he wiped the snot away from under his nose, and his conviction was strengthened further. He'd been his dad's navigator on the way up, like he always was, and the pattern of the streets was still there clearly on his mind. It would be child's play to find his way back. Besides, they'd been on that one windy road most of the time, the way really wasn't all that difficult. He would surprise Mom, and she would be so happy to see him that she wouldn't even be mad that he'd stayed up so late. And, most importantly, she would tell him that she loved him.
"Hey."
Charlie flinched violently, jerking his head around to the owner of the soft voice.
"Sorry," Don said when he realized how badly he'd startled him. "Mind if I sit down?" he added, gesturing at a spot in the grass next to Charlie.
He shook his head, yet more in order to clear his mind than as an answer. "Why?" he asked, still trying to leave his memories behind and return to the present time.
Don was silent for a moment, and only now did Charlie register the hostile tone of his own question. "I think we should talk," Don said before, without another word, he sat down beside him. Why had he even bothered asking?
"And what I think doesn't matter?"
Don was staring back at him, and the look in his eyes… if Charlie hadn't known any better, he might have thought that his big brother was looking a little hurt.
But he did know better. And he could see that Don was looking hurt.
"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head again, running his hands over his face as though that could help to wipe away the images of the past. "I… You startled me, I guess I'm still a little caught up in my mind. What are you even doing here?"
Don shrugged, but Charlie could tell he was still uncomfortable with the situation. As was he. "It's my lunch break. And after what happened this morning… I just figured we should talk."
He saw Don swallow nervously, saw the fight on his brother's face, the debate on whether or not he should ask the question. Eventually, he did. "So… were you thinking about… about that night?"
Charlie regarded his brother and had already made up his mind to answer when he stopped himself. Yes, he had been thinking about that night, but not about what Don was thinking, so he didn't quite know how to respond to his question.
Don, however, pretended to know the answer already. "I'm so sorry, buddy," he said in a low voice, putting a hand on Charlie's knee. When Charlie glanced down at the hand though, he quickly withdrew it again.
"I'm sorry," Don repeated. "If I had known… I would have never asked you to look at such cases, buddy, you have to believe me."
Charlie frowned, but kept staring into the dark water of his koi pond. Such cases? Was that what Don thought this was about, that Charlie was having a hard time dealing with child molesting cases?
"I just wish you would have talked to me. I thought you knew you could come to me with anything. I never… If I had known, I would have never left you alone with this, you gotta believe me. And I know it's been long in coming, but I'm still here if you want to talk, anytime."
Charlie was shaking his head. This was just wrong, he couldn't have this kind of conversation with Don, because Don didn't understand, he was just assuming that he did. Yes, Charlie needed to clear his head, but that would be a lot easier if he didn't have to explain everything he was going through to someone else, someone who, at this point, felt like a total stranger.
"I'm sorry," he said and stood, "I just need to be alone for a while."
He couldn't revisit that night, not with Don, not like this. It just didn't feel right, it didn't make him feel safe, and yet he'd always thought that he could feel safe in Don's presence. Somehow, however, this case had brought up something that Charlie had believed to have been settled, something other than what Pollack had done to him. He'd thought that he and Don were okay now, that they cared about each other, that they finally understood each other. Now, however, he was beginning to understand that he'd merely been living in an illusion. True, there was less fighting nowadays than there had been back in the day, but now he understood that this wasn't a sign of their closeness, it was just a sign of being adults. The true core of their relationship hadn't changed though, there was still nothing to be found there, and if the past was any indicator, there never would be.
"Any news?" Don asked hopefully when he re-joined his team in the afternoon.
"Nothing so far," David said. "If Pollack is behind this scheme, he sure knows how to hide the money. I couldn't find any unusual activities on his bank accounts, not so far at least. I'll keep checking, though." He paused, looking around the room, before his eyes rested on Don. "You think it was indeed Pollack? Who kidnapped Charlie back in the day?"
Don shrugged. Yes, he did think that. However, he also thought that he couldn't really trust his judgment in this case.
"It would sure make sense," Colby threw in, before he explained towards Don, "You should have seen him when they met, he completely spaced out." He paused for a second, moistening his lips. "I guess I can see why now. I'm sorry, man, I would have never been so hard on him if I'd known."
Don shrugged again, but was aware that he probably wasn't looking as unconcerned as he was trying to appear. "You don't need to tell me that."
Colby nodded thoughtfully. "So how's he doing?"
Another shrug, this time just to buy himself a couple of more seconds to think. It was of no use. "I have no idea," he had to admit in a low voice.
"Listen, guys," Megan joined them, "I just got off the phone with Mrs Svenson, the manager of the youth center. She told me there haven't been any complaints against Pollack ever since he started working there. I have to say, I'm not sure what to think anymore, but I believe we should at least allow for the possibility that Charlie misidentified Pollack. I mean, if Pollack really was a child molester, I can't imagine he could have worked at a youth center for more than fifteen years without any complaints in that regard. I haven't asked around among the other workers yet what they think about him, but… I mean, between the profile, the bank accounts and the job history, I'm just not sure we should keep focusing solely on Pollack any longer. I still wouldn't rule him out completely at this point, but I'd say it's a rather thin lead."
Don sighed. He thought for a minute, then shook his head. He knew she was right. "Okay, let's broaden the search again. I guess none of us ever thought we would find anything anyway."
"You think it's going to be enough to convince Charlie, too?"
Don gave David a look full of doubt. "You were there earlier, right?"
"We could still try to get him on what he did to Charlie," Colby added to the discussion. "Assuming that was really him."
Don shook his head. He'd thought about that. "What for? The statute of limitations is up. Even if Charlie were to denounce Pollack now, he couldn't be convicted for it after all these years."
"You think Charlie's aware of that?" Megan asked. "Do you think that's why he's pushing so hard for this? He realizes he can't get the man he thinks who did this to him on the original crime, so he tries to get him on something else?"
Don bit his lip and tilted his head. He'd thought about that, too. Charlie had shown an unusual amount of intransigence in his accusations of Pollack. "Wouldn't be the first time that someone working in law enforcement shows that kind of doggedness, would it?"
"So what are you going to do?" Colby asked the question of questions.
Again, Don answered with a shrug. It didn't elude him that somehow, that seemed to be his usual response in this case, and it made sense. He just didn't know what to do about this. "What can I do? I'm gonna call him and tell him that Pollack's not our guy."
Colby nodded to that, but it was a nod that didn't encourage Don in his decision, it was more the kind of nod that told him he should do that, for if he did it, nobody else would have to.
Charlie was shivering. It had gotten cold really fast, and of course his jacket was still at the campsite. But the cold wasn't really the worst part, not while he was moving. No, the worst part, much worse than the cold, was the darkness. The sun had just gone down when Charlie had decided to leave, and he'd still been able to see his surroundings without a problem then. Now, however…
He was sticking to the road, but walking a couple of yards next to it, because he'd been afraid of getting struck by a passing car. There was no pavement here though, it was just grass and rock and sand, and it was quite uneven, too. Twice, he'd stumbled and fallen down, and in those moments when he'd been lying on the ground, he'd been assailed by a sudden sensation of terror and a premonition that there was something behind him, some menace in his back that was about to strike him down, but that vanished as soon as he turned around.
It was the same with the trees and bushes. There was a constant breeze in the air, creating a rustling sound in the shrubbery along the road. And with the noise of the cicadas on top of it, Charlie couldn't shake the feeling that there were footsteps behind him, that somebody was following him. Every time he turned around though, there was nothing, just the darkness and the curiously shaped bushes that, for a moment, always seemed to be about to attack him when they moved in the breeze, but never did.
In the beginning, he'd been wishing for a flashlight to just magically appear in his hand, but by now, he wondered whether maybe he wasn't better off without one. Every time a car passed him, every time its lights were illuminating the landscape, Charlie felt that they were bringing more shadows with them than light, more fear than orientation. As the beam was crossing over the bushes, they became first bigger, than smaller again, like monsters rearing up, ready to detach from their earthly roots and go after him. And Charlie could try to tell himself all he wanted that monsters weren't real, that they only existed in stories, he could clearly see that these logical proofs were only sound in theory, and while he was lying in his own warm bed at home, where he knew that there were no monsters inside his cupboard or under his bed, because he'd inspected them before. Out here, however, he didn't know. Even if those monsters weren't aliens or vampires or werewolves, they might still be monsters, and they might still be trying to hurt him. Maybe those shadows, maybe those noises were produced by wild animals?
The thought made Charlie shudder and quicken his steps. Up until today, he'd considered mountain lions and coyotes some of the coolest creatures he knew, and he would have loved to see one close. That, however, had been during the day. Now, at night, alone, meeting a mountain lion face to face was pretty much the worst thing that Charlie could imagine.
That, however, was another opinion that was about to change tonight.
A shudder ran through him and he quickened his steps, being uncomfortably reminded of his nightly wanderings on Don's birthday. His visit to the cemetery had managed to quiet him down a little, but it also hadn't been apt to cheer him up. He'd always felt that his mother had understood him better than anyone else in this world, and the fact that she was now gone, that he was now alone with all this, was making him feel even more downcast.
Suddenly, he felt his heart being torn with longing. He wanted his mom back, he needed her to hold him tight, he needed to hear her voice. Ever since she'd died, he couldn't remember ever having missed her as fiercely as he was doing now. Yet, he knew it couldn't be helped. She was dead, so he just had to man up and do this on his own. Anyway, it was about time he manned up, wasn't it?
Despite what logic told him though, and despite him wanting to be a self-relying adult, he just couldn't stand the thought of being alone. He needed to talk to someone, someone who knew him, someone who understood.
Someone who loved him.
A moment later, his cell-phone was in his hands. He'd turned it off before he'd come here, and he frowned when he saw that he'd received two new messages in the meanwhile.
The first one was a text message from Amita, and he hesitated before opening it. He'd written her an e-mail earlier, and he was more than a little apprehensive as to her reaction, hoping that she would understand and at the same time fearing that she might not. In the end, however, he couldn't bear the tension any longer, and as he read her text, a smile was slowly forming on his face:
I'm here whenever you need me. I love you, too.
He closed his eyes, thankful and relieved. For a moment, he pondered calling her back right then, but he knew that he couldn't, not yet. He wouldn't have known what to say. There were still so many thoughts whirling around in his mind that he first needed to bring in order before he dared laying them out to someone else, even if it was Amita.
Instead, he listened to Don's voicemail, figuring that hearing the voice of someone he knew was almost as good as talking to them, and about as far as he dared going right now.
"Hey, buddy," Don was saying, and his tone made Charlie stop and focus his attention on his brother's message. "Listen, I'm sorry, but we took a closer look at Pollack, and right now, it just doesn't look like he's involved in the pornography website, we couldn't find any links whatsoever." He hesitated, and Charlie allowed himself to hope that there was more to come, that somehow, they were still planning to do something about that monster. "I'm sorry, I know how strongly you feel about this. Let's talk about this tonight, okay? I'll swing by the house as soon as I'm finished here and then we can… you know, just talk about it all. Alright then… take care."
With that, the message stopped, and Charlie regarded his phone. He was sure that there had to be more somewhere. Maybe Don had sent him another text, or left another message in his inbox? At the same time though, he knew that there would be nothing, that this was it, that Don and the team had decided to just let this go.
Charlie could feel anger flare up inside him, the fire that had been smoldering there for more than twenty years finally burning high in a blazing flame that went through his body like electricity. He just couldn't believe it – they were actually letting him down, they were letting Pollack walk, they were just turning away when they had finally gotten their hands on a pathological criminal who'd been hurting children for more than two decades now!
This had to stop. Right now, Charlie didn't know what he was going to do about it, but he knew it had to stop, and he knew he had to do something. Just sitting there and doing nothing wasn't going to make this problem go away, it wouldn't solve anything, not for Charlie, not for Pollack's other victims and not for the victims to come. True, he would have liked to have some help on this, but Don had made it abundantly clear that he and the FBI had decided to do nothing whatsoever about this. At any rate, why was Don suddenly so fixated on talking? What good had ever come out of merely talking about stuff? No, what was required here was taking action, and if the FBI wasn't going to do that, then Charlie would.
"Don! What a nice surprise!" his dad greeted him when he opened the door, and Don gave a subdued greeting back that immediately changed his father's mood. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Where's Charlie?" Don asked instead, unwilling to get into a fight with his father before he would have checked on his brother.
"He's not home yet," his dad said, and Don saw the concern on his face increase. "I thought he was with you."
"You mean you haven't seen him all day?" Don asked, remembering that his dad hadn't been home earlier, when he'd come here during his lunch break.
"Not since this morning," his dad replied, his worry now taking over, and Don, too, could feel a sense of alarm awaken in his guts. "What's going on, Don? Is Charlie in trouble?"
Don bit his lip. "Not really," he chose to reply, deciding to take care of first things first. When he tried reaching his brother's cell however, his call went to voicemail. Again.
"He'll be with Amita," his dad said, but there was some doubt in his voice, probably caused by the insecurity Don had put him into. And to tell the truth, after what happened today, Don wasn't sure whether Charlie would be taking refuge to Amita of all people. Or maybe that was exactly where he would go, maybe being with her was the one place that made him feel okay? Don just couldn't tell.
"Don," his dad said, more urgently now, "what's going on?"
"Why don't you tell me?" Don asked, unable to hold down his anger any longer. He'd managed not to think about it much over the course of the day, but now that he was standing face to face with his old man, with that righteous man who'd taught him all about those values of honesty and loyalty that Don was fighting to protect every day, he could no longer hold himself back. "You seem to know a lot more about this than I do."
His dad was shaking his head. "About what?"
"Charlie saw a man today that he claims he recognizes as his kidnapper," Don said, and immediately knew that he shouldn't have phrased it that way. One, it was cruel towards his father, and two, he should have given Charlie more credit. Don knew that Charlie hadn't just claimed he'd recognized Pollack, he'd recognized him. Yet, somehow, feeling the pain he was inflicting on himself by saying the wrong things was liberating, because he finally got some of the punishment that he deserved.
"What?" his dad whispered, aghast.
Don could see the distress on his face, but he didn't want to think about that now, he didn't want to think about what seeing Pollack might have done to Charlie, because that would only take him back to earlier today, when he'd tried to help him and failed, because he just didn't know how to help him, because it just didn't feel like he knew him anymore.
"You lied to me," he instead decided to focus on his anger, on something that was so much easier to bear.
"Lied to you?" his dad repeated, uncomprehending.
"You told me he'd been kidnapped for ransom!" Don burst out and could feel all the emotions that had accumulated over the course of the day pour out of him at once. Anger, yes, but also fear and worry and despair and helplessness and pain. "You knew what that scumbag did to him, you knew it was never about the money!"
"Don..." his dad tried to calm him down, but his attempt was weak and died. Instead, he was putting his head in his hands as if to hide it.
"Why did you lie to me?" Don asked, but somehow could no longer find the anger that he'd felt before.
His dad was looking up at him then, shaking his head with an expression on his face that told Don enough, that told him what he should have known all along. "We just didn't want to burden you with this," he said. "You were a child, Don, and that's not the kind of knowledge we wanted to lay on you."
"But you had no right to lie to me!" Don exclaimed, becoming more upset again. "You could have told me later, at any rate you should have told me when Charlie started consulting for us! Do you think I would have ever asked him about this child pornography case if I had known?"
His dad regarded him earnestly. "I don't know," he said quietly after a long pause. "You also asked him for his help on kidnapping cases, even with children as victims."
Don stared at him. His dad was right. Don hadn't thought about that, and the reminder was hitting him hard. Yes, he'd done that. But he hadn't thought that Charlie would mind. After all, he'd never said anything, he'd always accepted to help out on whatever case Don had presented to him. Still, he should have known better.
Was it possible that he was just as self-righteous as he was accusing his father of being?
Just while he was busy questioning the aptitude of his own moral high-ground, his father was apparently searching his soul as well. He was shaking his head slowly, emanating a kind of sadness that Don hadn't seen on him in years.
"I just thought..." he started, shaking his head again and falling silent. "I mean, he never talked about it. I just assumed he had forgotten all about it."
"How would he forget something like that?!" Don exclaimed and stood. The next moment, he decided he had to leave. He needed to go outside, to get some air. He couldn't stand to see his father at this point, but much less could he stand the idea that all the things he would have liked to accuse him of, all his shortcomings in helping Charlie deal with this, were things that Don was culpable of himself.
"Hey, kiddo, where are you headed so late?"
Charlie kept on walking. He'd heard the car slow down, but still didn't know what to do. At this stretch of the road, there were no shrubs that hid him from the view of the drivers, but that hadn't really been a problem as long as there had been no traffic whatsoever. Now, a car had appeared next to him, but what was there to be done? He could hardly just run further away from the road just to get away from them, could he? At night, without a flashlight, that would be a sure way to get lost, at least for all those who couldn't find their way by the stars, like they did in the adventure stories he'd read, but that was something Charlie hadn't learned to do yet.
"Where's your mommy and daddy? Did you get lost?" Even though Charlie was trying to look straight ahead, he could see that the man was leaning over to the side window while his car was crawling forward, always staying next to him.
"I'm fine," Charlie replied loudly over his shoulder, never ceasing to walk. He'd actually increased his speed, and he was starting to get stitches in the side.
"Okay, kiddo, I'm sure you are, but take a look around. It's dark, and it's a pretty far way to the nearest town. Where are you from?"
Charlie was decreasing his speed again. The stitches were getting really bad, and besides, the man didn't seem evil or anything. Probably just someone who was concerned. Charlie could understand that, he could see his father do the exact same thing.
But of course that still didn't mean he would deviate from his plan. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," he stated clearly.
"And that's a really wise decision," the stranger praised his actions. "But you're not supposed to wander through the wilderness alone either, certainly not at night."
Charlie bit his lip, but kept walking.
"Look, kiddo, I can't just let you wander about on your own. Who knows what could happen to you? You need to realize that there are a lot of wild animals out there, and a lot of bad people, too."
"I know," Charlie claimed, even though until now, he'd only met bad people in comic books and movies. Not to forget the fairy tales his mother had used to read to him.
"So what are we going to do about that?" the man asked.
Charlie shrugged, but didn't reply.
"What's your name?" the man then asked.
Again, Charlie was silent. His parents had told him to never give his name to strangers.
"My name's Steven," the man said.
Charlie hesitated, but remembered his mother's warning. He didn't really understand what harm there could be in telling him his name, but he chose to just trust his mother on this. After all, she was almost always right.
"Listen, kid, you look exhausted. This road is really, really long. You need to keep yourself hydrated, you know, drink enough. Otherwise you're never going to make it back home."
At that, Charlie stopped. To tell the truth, his mouth was dry, like the desert, and he'd been yearning for something to drink for more than an hour now. And the man did seem nice. Still, it was better to be on the lookout.
"You're really not the trusting kind of kid, are you?" the man laughed and gave him an affable smile. "Never lose that, it's good to be on your guard. Okay, let's do it this way: I'll drink from the water first, and then I'll hand it out to you, okay? That way you can be sure it's not poisoned." At his last words, he winked at Charlie, which made him feel a little silly about this. After all, this man was just trying to be nice.
"Okay," he agreed with a shrug.
The man brought his car to a stop, so Charlie stood too, but kept a yard's distance to it. He saw the man drink from a small bottle that was almost empty, and then stretch over towards him. Charlie took the bottle and downed the meager rest, relishing the sensation of the liquid on his dried-out tongue and not even minding that the water was rather warm.
"Wait a sec, I've got a whole pack in my trunk, I can give you a bottle for the road."
Before Charlie could even say 'thank-you', the man had gotten out of his car and rounded it. Charlie was moving nearer to the trunk, eager to get the bottle and continue his way, when with a swift and sudden movement, the man grabbed him, pressing Charlie's arms so tightly against his body that he couldn't move them.
He started screaming then, unaware that the sound-waves couldn't reach human ears. He was struggling in the man's grip, he was kicking his legs, but that too was of no use. A moment later, the man had pressed him to the ground, and he winced when he felt the stones pricking the skin in his back. He tried to get up, but the man was so much stronger than him, and he was holding a hand over Charlie's mouth and nose so tightly that Charlie couldn't get any air in. He was jerking and kicking under the man's grip, but it wasn't helping, he just felt the need for air worsen with every second passing, with every kick that went into nowhere. And then, slowly, he felt he darkness descend upon him, moving in from the edges of his field of vision until there was nothing.
Charlie could feel himself tremble and ran his hands over his face, trying to level himself. He needed to stay focused, he had to maintain a clear head. He needed to keep in mind that Pollack couldn't hurt him anymore, for one, Charlie was no longer a kid, and two, Pollack was at a safe distance, sitting inside in his living room, separated from Charlie by the walls of his house. Still, being so close to him, seeing him… it was messing with Charlie's mind rather badly, and he had to fight hard to remain here, in the present time, and not be taken back to that night of pain and terror.
Pollack wasn't alone inside, there was another man with him, two other men, actually. One of them was about Pollack's age, probably a couple of years older, and at any rate, in worse shape than him. A beer belly was hanging over his belt, sticking out a little under his shirt. The third man in the house was quite young, maybe around Charlie's age, with a dark full beard that made him seem quite respectable, but also a little grim.
Charlie had not yet figured out who Pollack's two visitors were, but he was set on finding out. Right now, his plan of catching Pollack red-handed somehow didn't seem as far-fetched as logic had told him that it was before he'd come here. Even though Charlie had had his doubts that Pollack was actually involved in the child pornography scheme, he could have sworn that they were up to something, even though he couldn't tell whether it had anything to do with Don's case, and frankly, he had no idea how to figure out anything of importance just from standing in Pollack's flowerbed and watching him. And so far, the 'suspicious circumstances', if you could call them that, could all be explained away with ease. Anybody could have late visitors at his own home, and the fact that they were all staring at a computer screen discussing something could also have a number of various reasons.
And to tell the truth, right now, it was all looking like a normal evening among old friends, maybe with an unusual amount of discussion. The young man had exited the room, and Pollack had gone to the cabinet, retrieving a bottle of something that Charlie guessed to be high in alcohol content. They were sitting on the couch, talking rather animatedly, and while Charlie couldn't understand the words they were saying, he could still hear their voices. Right now, Pollack was talking, and it felt as though the sound of his voice was crawling under Charlie's skin, invading him and taking him back to that night more than twenty years ago.
Suddenly, he could hear a soft sound behind him, like a whoosh or a rustle, and he meant to turn around. Before he'd even started to move though, something hard was hitting him from behind and he toppled over.
Charlie's face still hadn't hit the dark soil when the pain started to register, a raging ball of fire that began its way in his head before it wandered down his back, leaving behind smoldering ember that settled there, burning off his skin and everything underneath. He tried to bring his hands to his head, figuring everything would be better if he could just hold it tightly, maybe make sure the back half of his skull wasn't about to fall off, but he had to realize that he couldn't. Moving required simply too much effort, and anyway, he wouldn't have known where his hands were, nor his head.
He heard something hitting the ground and the sound seemed familiar somehow, but he still couldn't place it in his confused state. Only later did he realize that it must have been the throwing away of the shovel or spade or whatever object had been used to knock him down. Before he could even think about the source of the noise though, there was another sensation, a pressure pushing him deeper into the soil and rendering the idea of moving from 'arduous' to 'simply impossible'.
The next moment, he felt that movement was still possible after all, for his hands were being pulled back hard behind his back. He emitted a soft groan and tried to pull them back forward, tried to turn around, but he couldn't. Between the pain in his head, the confusion and the pressure on his chest, he had effectively lost all ability to make decisions over his body's actions.
He felt an uncomfortable sensation at his hands then, something was irritating his skin and hurting his wrists. He tried to pull them away from the unpleasantness, but it only made things worse. He heard another groan, but it took him a moment to realize that it had come from himself. Finally, the weight was lifted from his back, and his hands had regained more freedom, even though Charlie could still feel the bonds that were tying them together. Before he could rejoice at the improvement, though, the weight moved to his legs, and the unpleasant pulling movement was repeated there. It was only then that Charlie realized: he was being bound. Someone had knocked him over and was now binding him, and no matter how much he told his foggy mind to conjure up an explanation for that, he couldn't find one that didn't mean peril for him.
He tried to get away, but soon had to realize that he had no chance of succeeding. He didn't even manage to get up on his knees, let alone stand upright. Maybe he would have accomplished that even despite the hell his head was giving him if it hadn't been for his hands being bound, but even so, he wouldn't have been able to outrun his attacker.
"Don't make a move or sound," he was hissing now that he seemed to realize Charlie was regaining his wits. "Keep quiet, or you'll be sorry."
It was as though his attacker's words had been spoken into a mirror, for they achieved the exact opposite effect with Charlie. Making a sound seemed suddenly like a good idea, he hadn't thought of that before. He hadn't even opened his mouth yet, however, when a hand was pressed over it, pushing his chin up against his upper jaw so hard that it hurt while simultaneously covering his mouth and nose. It took a second, but then Charlie realized that he wasn't getting in any air. His struggles became more panicked then, but his body's weakness was still too great as though that could have had any effect. Instead, he felt the margins of his field of vision become cloudy again, the black dispelling the little light that had surrounded him, until there was nothing.
Don could feel his heart sink as he watched his father listen to the phone before eventually, he hung up again.
"Voicemail," his dad told him what he'd already read on his face. "Do you think…" He hesitated, then tried again, "Do you think we should call Amita?"
How the hell am I supposed to know? Don wanted to reply. This was simply impossible, he had no idea whether they should just leave Charlie alone for a while, give him the space he'd asked for, or whether it wasn't time to get seriously worried about him.
"I'm calling her," he eventually decided, following his guts and the silent plea he could read in his father's eyes. Granted, Charlie hadn't seemed too bad when they'd talked outside by the pond, but when Don thought about how he'd conducted himself in the office this morning, his brother's condition became more worrisome.
"Charlie, is that you?" Amita responded the phone, making Don's spirits dwindle.
"Hey, Amita, it's me, Don," he now also destroyed her hopes, before he explained, "I'm at Charlie's house, with our dad, I've put you on speaker phone. So he's not with you?"
"No," she said, and a certain alarm had crept into her voice, "I thought he was with you."
Don sighed, but told himself to just go about this as about any other missing person's case.
He stopped. Charlie wasn't really missing, was he?
On the other hand: where was he?
"Do you have any idea where else he might be?" Don asked. "Maybe Larry –"
"He's in space."
Right, Don thought. For a moment, he'd actually forgotten about that. He turned to look at his father, hoping that he would come up with any other places where Charlie might likely be, but all he could see there was worry. "Have you been in contact at all with him today?" Don eventually asked, making a mental note that they could still check out CalSci.
"I haven't seen him," Amita started a bit hesitantly, "but he wrote me an e-mail earlier today where he… he explained everything to me."
"When was that?"
"At around noon, wait a second… 1:33 pm."
So after their conversation by the pond and before Don had called him about their abandoning the lead on Pollack, Don thought. "What does it say?" he continued the questioning.
Amita hesitated. "He told me about what happened when he was eight," she said with an obvious strain in her voice.
"Can you read it to me?"
Again, she hesitated. "Are you serious?"
"Look, we're all worried about him, right? But before I can do anything about it officially, we should exhaust all other options first."
"Officially?" Amita repeated and Don could practically hear the frown in her voice. "He told me he just needed some space."
Don paused. True, Charlie had told him that, too, but somehow, he'd imagined that 'space' wouldn't mean just disappear from the face of the earth.
"Look, I just need to figure out what mindset he's in. Or do you think it's normal he just doesn't come home or answer his phone? I mean, we still haven't tried CalSci –"
"I doubt he's there," Amita interrupted him. "They're painting his office, remember?"
Don paused. Right, Charlie had mentioned that. Now, however, he had to admit he was running out of places where Charlie might have gone. "Don't you think, too, that he should have turned up somewhere by now? You didn't see him this morning, but he was really upset and not really acting like himself. And if he needs some space, we can still give him that once we know he's okay, right?"
Amita didn't reply at once, but Don took it as a good sign. "I've been hoping he was doing more or less okay, despite everything," she eventually whispered.
"And maybe he is and there's a good explanation for why he hasn't come home yet," Don tried to calm her down. "But I'd just like to make sure."
"I want that, too," Amita agreed, "I just don't know how his email is gonna help us with that. He didn't say anything about what he was going to do."
"Maybe not explicitly, but maybe we can still find clues in his text," Don clung to his hope. "And if there are, between the three of us, we should be able to figure this out, right?"
She sighed, but didn't say anything for several seconds. "Alright," she then agreed quietly before she cleared her throat and began to read.
"Dear Amita,
I'm so sorry I'm not telling you this in person, but turns out that I'm a coward. It's just that I told Don's team earlier today, and I can't go through this again.
It's a story that's told quickly and that I probably should have told you long before now: when I was eight, I was molested by a man. He kidnapped me and brought me to a cabin and he held me there for the remainder of the night. The next day, he left, and a couple of hours later, I was found by the police.
I don't want this to become an issue between us, and speaking for myself, it hasn't been so far. I feel safe with you, and that hasn't changed. Now, however, that everything's come up again, I think it might take me some time to re-acclimate, so-to-speak, so I'd like to ask you to be patient. And not just about that. I can see it's not really fair to you, but I'd just like to ask you for some time, just a day or two, to let me clear my head.
Again, I'm sorry I didn't tell you in person, and I'm sorry I'm being so selfish. I just hope you understand, even though I'm not sure I understand it myself.
I love you.
Charlie."
Don swallowed and bit his lip. He had to admit, in this e-mail, Charlie seemed much more level-headed than he'd acted this morning in the office, but Don wasn't sure whether he should be calmed down by that or even more concerned. The thing that he was rather sure of, however, was that in the entire text, there had been no indication whatsoever as to where Charlie might have gone.
The car had stopped and there were footsteps approaching. Charlie felt his trembling increase, and a whimper was escaping his throat, being muffled by the piece of cloth that the man had put in his mouth. He was struggling against his bonds, trying to get free in time, before the man would open the trunk, but he'd been trying the entire time and hadn't succeeded, so chances were that nothing was going to change about that now.
The tears, having stopped a while before, were there again when he was assailed by a new wave of fear. What was that man going to do to him? Where had he brought him? And would he ever let him see his family again?
His tears were seeping into the blindfold that the man had put over his eyes and that after Charlie's panicked attempts to get rid of yet another restraint was hanging lopsidedly over his face.
The trunk opened, and the man was bending over him. Charlie started whimpering, trying to shrink back from his hands, but it was of no use, the trunk was a confined space, there was no possibility for escape. The hands were approaching his face and he jerked back his head, but still the man managed to put the blindfold back in place. Then, the hands were going under his body, making Charlie flinch, before they took him up, heaving him out of the trunk and into the cool night air.
"Stop struggling," the man said, and his voice sounded so soft, so caring, that it elicited new tears from Charlie, making him sob so hard that he had trouble catching his breath. There was a tenderness in the man's voice, and there was a tenderness in his touch, and the mismatch between his tenderness and his actions was something so confusing that, try as he might, Charlie just couldn't make any sense of it.
There was a kind of rocking movement, one that was making him sick. There was an unpleasant pressure on his belly and his hip bones, and his head was feeling hot and not really fit for thinking. He heard someone moan and realized it had to be himself, before he was assailed by a coughing fit. His throat was sore, and he needed air, he desperately needed air, but there was something in his way. There was something in his mouth, it kind of felt like cloth, or maybe rubber, and Charlie thought it was strange that he couldn't tell the difference. All he knew was that it smelled of soil, it was the same powerful scent that had entered his nose when he'd been struck down beneath Pollack's window, face first.
His memory was back now, and so was his orientation, even though that was more of a challenge. Now he realized though that the thing in his mouth was probably a garden glove, and he could also tell that someone was carrying him inside the house, over the shoulder, and now Charlie could finally make sense of the pain in his lower body and the blood in his head. His head was still killing him, and he was still struggling to provide his brain with enough oxygen, but still he could tell that from the moment he'd been struck down, there couldn't have passed more than a couple of seconds, even though he seemed to have entered a whole new part of hell.
"Keep quiet," a man told him, and now he thought he recognized the voice from earlier, it had to be the young full beard who'd been sitting in Pollack's living room. His words, however, hadn't fully registered yet when his attention was captured by the sensation of light. He could only see it indirectly, since most of his field of vision was blocked by the full beard's back, but he realized they must have entered the house and were probably approaching the living room.
"Close the blinds," he heard the full beard call out, and then there was a commotion, an overlay of different voices that was too complex for Charlie's mind to process in his current state. The next thing he was truly aware of was landing on his back, hard enough to blow the air out of his lungs, but not hard enough to actually do damage to his body, and that even though his shoulders were still twisted due to his bound hands.
"But why did you bring him in here?" Charlie now tried to follow the conversation while he was squinting against the bright light.
"What was I supposed to do, let him run off with everything he's seen?" the full beard angrily replied to Pollack's question.
"We don't know whether or not he knows anything!" Pollack exclaimed.
"So why was he out there in the middle of the night watching us?"
"He has a point, Steven," the third man joined the conversation, the old one. "Do you know him?"
Pollack regarded Charlie for a moment, and against the light, one might have thought there was something like pity in his eyes.
"That's that professor I mentioned earlier," he said, "the one working with the FBI."
"He's the professor?" the full beard asked with incredulity.
"That's what they told me," Pollack replied with a helpless gesture of his hands.
"So he does know something! He must have found out!" the full beard exclaimed and started pacing the living-room. Charlie lifted his head just slightly to watch him pace, knowing intuitively that this was where he should foremost expect danger from.
He was so right. "We need to kill him," the young man said and crossed his arms before his chest to give his words more weight. There was a strange look in his eyes, like that of a cornered animal, but his posture seemed firm, relentless.
It was only then that Charlie registered the true meaning of his words, and when he did, he felt as though an icy hand was grabbing for his heart, squishing it so much that it hurt. Yet, at the same time, the cold was spreading out from his guts, going out into his limbs, into every fiber of his body, making him tremble, but simultaneously making him feel numb, as if all this wasn't really happening to him, as though he was part of another world than everything he could see around him. But he knew that he wasn't. Thus, when they would kill him, this whole unrealistic horror show would all of a sudden become very, very real.
He shuddered, and it was as though that motion was taking him back to that room, back to their conversation of which, as it seemed, he had missed something, for suddenly, his three kidnappers were fighting.
"I told you, I'm not gonna do it, end of discussion," Pollack was just saying, and the fear was clearly audible in his words.
"Alright, I'll do it then," the full beard said. "But we need insurance, we need to make sure you're not going to rat us out." He snorted, giving first Pollack, then Charlie a look full of derision. "See him as your parting gift to us."
"I can't –" Pollack tried to argue, but was interrupted.
"Of course you can," the old man said. His voice was so deep that it resounded in the small living-room like the detonation of a cannon, and the effect of his words was similar to that as well. "If you want out, you're either going to kill him, or you're going to give us one last tape. Take your pick, but take it now."
Pollack let his eyes wander back and forth between them before it landed on Charlie. For a moment, their gazes interlocked, and even though Charlie felt as though he couldn't breathe, he couldn't tear his eyes away either.
"Let's make the video," Pollack eventually decided in a low voice.
There was nobody else in the office at this time of night, at least not on Don's floor, and he was glad about it. What he was about to do wasn't strictly legal, so he could do very well without any witnesses.
He opened the program that allowed him to track cell-phones, but hesitated before inserting Charlie's number, remembering Amita's warning. Charlie had asked them for some space. And Don understood, somehow, he understood the need to let everything settle and get to terms with things on one's own, make some sense of them first before talking about them. On the other hand, he just couldn't get rid of the queasy feeling in his guts. Something wasn't right with Charlie, he'd been unusually impulsive this morning, and the fact that he wasn't anywhere to be found… Don just couldn't help himself, he couldn't put his fears to rest that his brother might be up to something stupid, something that had the potency of self-destruction.
Don shook his head and made a decision: better be safe than sorry. After all, if Don's concerns were exaggerated, there was no reason why Charlie would ever have to know about this. Therefore, Don inserted the number and few moments later received the coordinates where it had last been logged in, two hours ago, and he frowned. It was a residential area, and something told him… but surely Charlie wouldn't have been that stupid?
A quick research told him that his reluctance to think the worst of his brother had been ill-founded, for it was indeed Pollack's house that Charlie had gone to, and Don ran his hands over his face. What the hell was he supposed to do now? If he showed up at the house and Charlie was fine, chances were that Don's arrival would only get him into trouble, because chances were that Charlie had been trespassing. If, on the other hand, Charlie was in trouble already, there wasn't a moment to lose, and in that case, he would also need his team's support to resolve peacefully whatever he would run into.
So the question at bottom really was this: had Charlie been right about Pollack's involvement, or had he been wrong? That was the question that Don needed to find an answer to, and fast, and if he were to decide wrong, his brother would probably pay the price for that – a thought that didn't exactly give Don the calm he needed to figure out a solution to this problem. On the one hand, he knew that all their facts pointed to Pollack being innocent and Charlie being wrong about his role in the porn ring. And yet…
His mind was taken back to this morning, to Charlie's arduous accusation of Pollack and to his account of what had happened that night. And even though Charlie had been upset and not completely in his right mind, Don knew, he could just feel it, that Charlie was sure about this. And Don knew his brother, the chances of him being wrong once he was sure of something – well, they were so low that maybe not even Charlie himself would be able to calculate them.
"Hold on, it's no good, your face got caught on camera again."
"So let's just cut it out of the footage and piece it together afterwards!" Pollack replied with growing impatience. "We should really get this over with before someone shows up here looking for him!"
"You do realize this is for your own good, right? Just because we want some proof that you knew him doesn't mean we should broadcast your face all over the internet. Remember that we only want them to be able to identify you in case they find out we're involved, not find out we're involved because they identified you. Now come on, don't be such a chicken, nobody's gonna look for him tonight, we have plenty of time to do this right," the full beard argued, before he explained to Pollack the importance of adhering to their plan and 'do this right', both to satisfy their customers and to avoid detection if someone were to analyze the content from their website.
Charlie let them talk and tried to concentrate on his breathing. He counted to five in his head while inhaling, then while exhaling, waiting for his heart to slow down its rapid frequency as well. He was still having trouble providing his brain with the right amount of oxygen, but he knew that it wasn't merely his fear that had to be blamed for that, for they had found something else than just bonds and fear to not make him act out too much. They'd put a mask on his face, one that Charlie thought he knew from the videos on the website, and one that was rendering his feelings of imprisonment even worse. Not only did it go around his entire head, exerting a pressure on it that made him feel claustrophobic, but it also gave them the ability to cut off his senses. There was some sort of visor, which, however, they had left open, 'to catch the fear in his eyes', as they'd said. That still left them with another source of power though, one that was much more worrisome to Charlie, and that was the ability to control his air supply, since his mouth was covered by the mask as well, with nothing but thin tubes enabling him to breathe. At the beginning, when he'd still tried to fight them, they had used those tubes, holding their lower end shut. The feeling of suffocation had made him panic then, while the deprivation of oxygen had made him weak, leaving him rather defenseless for a couple of minutes, until the oxygen level in his body had returned to normal.
By now, he'd abandoned his attempts of fighting back, seeing that there was no sense in it. Every now and then, it hit him that this was insane, that he just had to fight, that they were going to kill him soon if he didn't find a way out of here, but somehow, the thought was still too absurd as though it could have induced panic in him. Everything here just seemed absurd, just didn't seem real, and the fact that they were recording it all on tape was only amplifying that impression.
"So what do you want me to do," Pollack's voice came to his ears then, like an angry actor on a set, "put his clothes back on and off again? How many more times do we have to do that?"
"Just relax, will you!?" the full beard returned. "Let's just try it one more time. After all, the third time is the charm."
Charlie closed his eyes and cautiously sighed with relief. Another time then, some more minutes of grace. His mind was telling him that it didn't matter, that he'd be dead before morning either way, and that they would go through with that other thing first. But deep down, he was still reluctant to accept that theoretical idea as the one possibility that would eventually turn out to be the truth. Who knew, maybe they would change their mind? Or maybe Charlie would find a way to escape after all? Pollack obviously didn't want to be part of the killing, maybe that would be his chance? At any rate, he needed to keep himself fit for fighting, and to stay level-headed, and he definitely could not lose himself in his memories.
Strangely, that was easier than he would have imagined. On the one hand, it was as though his worst nightmares had come to life, the attacker of his childhood had returned to hurt him all over again. On the other hand… it just didn't seem real. It was nothing more but a pale imitation. True, Pollack had taken off Charlie's clothes, and yes, he had taken them off with those agonizingly slow movements, with far more skin contact than required, and yes, it had been bad. But it had stayed at this point. It had never gotten any worse, and even while Pollack had taken off his clothes… it hadn't felt the way it had then, nor the way it felt in his nightmares. There was a more technical side to it now, Pollack had no longer that lecherous thrill about him that had made Charlie's skin crawl back in the day. So yes, all wasn't lost yet, and all he had to do was keep calm, control his breathing, not think too much about the fact that he was lying here naked and defenseless, and wait for a chance to change his fate.
"Did you hear that?" the younger one said, re-directing Charlie's attention to the events that were still playing out here in the real world outside his head, that were still something he needed to stay aware of.
"I don't –" Pollack started, but never finished his sentence, for at that moment, something happened that seriously challenged to disrupt the fine line between the world of never-to-be realized potentiality and the actual world. The door burst open, and loud voices were shouting, simultaneously bringing chaos and order to the small room.
"FBI! Get down on your knees, hands on your head!"
Charlie had flinched at their entrance and was pulling up his knees closer to his body as if he was looking for some sort of protection. Yet he knew, the voice was telling him, that he no longer needed to find ways to protect himself. His field of vision was still restricted due to the mask and he couldn't turn around and see behind himself because of his bonds, but he'd recognized David's voice, and now he recognized the ones of the rest of the team as well.
He closed his eyes and felt his heart flutter. The amount of tension that was leaving him and the suddenness with which the relief had come left him weak and disoriented, and he was struggling to stay on top of what was happening around him.
"Get them out of here," he heard Don give the order, and when he re-opened his eyes, Charlie could see Megan, David and Colby lead the three criminals away.
"It's okay, buddy," his attention was then directed towards Don, who was now occupying most of his field of vision. "It's over now, they can't hurt you anymore."
Charlie swallowed, but chose to believe his brother's words. It didn't elude him though that Don hadn't asked him whether or not he was okay, he'd just told him that 'it' was. However, Charlie also had to realize that he wouldn't have known how to respond if he'd been asked how he was doing. Yes, he was feeling relieved, he was glad that this nightmare had come to an end, and he was immensely grateful that, however it was possible, Don and his team had showed up here when they had. At the same time, however, he couldn't help but feel humiliated, and not just because he'd long ago become aware of his own stupidity of coming here, alone no less. No, what was eating at him wasn't merely the fact that he'd brought himself into a situation where he needed saving, it was also the distinct awareness that he was still lying here naked, and that this was how they had found him. And then, despite everything, the memory of Pollack and his actions came back, his hands that were taking off his clothes, and suddenly, he didn't feel lucky anymore that things hadn't gone further than that, he didn't feel lucky that things hadn't turned out as badly as last time, he just felt violated all over again.
While Charlie was busy controlling the emotions that were threatening to overpower him, Don had wordlessly taken off the mask and his bonds. Especially the mask had taken some time, since Don's hands were shaking almost as much as Charlie's entire body.
"Can you sit up?" he now asked him, and Charlie nodded, accepting his brother's help to bring him into an upright position.
"It's gonna be okay," Don then whispered and encircled Charlie's upper body with his arms, holding him close.
For a moment, Charlie was rigid, not sure how to react, before his body took over command and he let himself fall. As he felt his brother's arms around him and his cheek close to his own, he allowed himself to give in to the embrace, to close his eyes and just relish the feeling of safety and comfort that Don was giving him. That, however, only lasted for a couple of seconds, and was replaced with the self-conscious feeling of still sitting there without any clothes on.
He freed himself and Don immediately let go, looking at him with concerned eyes.
"Would you mind turning around?" Charlie asked in a low voice, one that was still trembling badly.
"What?" Don asked, uncomprehending.
"So I can put my clothes back on," Charlie explained in the same voice while he watched understanding cross his brother's face.
"Of course," he nodded, reddening. "Yeah, sure."
It was a bit of a challenge. Not only were his hands trembling badly, he also felt very conscious of Don's presence, which made him hasten in his efforts, which ultimately was probably slowing him down. There was, however, more than just the physical limitations rendering his task difficult. No matter how much Charlie was telling himself that he was safe now, that Pollack was outside and out of his reach, he just couldn't get rid of the feeling of the man's hands on his body, of his fingertips stroking his skin while they were pushing up his T-shirt, or pulling down his boxers…
Stop it, he told himself. He had to stay calm, it was alright. Pollack hadn't done anything to him, not this time. All he needed to do was keep that in mind, and then Don would be right, everything would be okay.
"Can you take me home now?" he asked when he was finished. He was getting impatient with his ability or rather inability to speak, for his voice was still low, still sounded weak.
It was efficient enough, though. Don whirled around as though he'd been waiting for the starting signal for a 100-meters race, startling Charlie a little. At the same time, he knew he'd seen this kind of concerned eagerness before, and then the moment he'd thought he'd forgotten was there again playing on his mind.
Don was staring at him from across the living room, and Charlie felt on the verge of crying. He couldn't do this now. He couldn't fight with his brother, he couldn't take his rejection and annoyance, not now. He was still standing between his parents, who'd just picked him up from the police station, and all Charlie wanted to do was to curl up against them and fall into a slumber where there would be neither thought nor memory of the past night.
Don was coming closer, slowly, and for a moment, Charlie thought he was going to punch him. At the same time, he knew Don wouldn't dare to do that, not with their parents standing right next to them, and so he waited for Don to come closer still. Only then did he register the look in his brother's eyes, one that he'd never seen there before and that still reminded him of something. Yet, it took him days to figure out what it was, that it was the same expression that he'd seen in his parents' eyes when they'd come to pick him up from the station.
That evening, however, he didn't realize that, so he was doubly surprised when Don pulled him into a hug.
"Never run off like that again," he told him a little gruffly, but while he was saying the words, he was gripping Charlie's back with a force that enabled him to understand the words like Don meant them, like the 'I'm glad you're back safely' that they were. And even though Charlie still hadn't been sure then that he'd understood his brother correctly, Don had proven him right over the course of the next few days. It hadn't been much, only slight changes in his behavior, but there was a certain attentiveness Don was showing to him that he hadn't shown before.
Granted, Charlie remembered, they had soon gone back to their old ways, but now he realized that something had remained ever since that night. Don had still not been a fan of spending a whole lot of time with him, but he'd never again just cast him aside like that, he'd always made sure that his brother was safe.
"Should we make a stop at the hospital first?" Don asked as he was standing by to help while Charlie got in the car. "We found the shovel –"
"I'm fine," Charlie interrupted him while fastening his seat-belt and forced himself to return to the present. "I'd just like to go home."
"Of course," Don said and quickly rounded the car.
As he was looking back towards the house, his eyes were caught by Don's fellow agents standing near-by, apparently waiting for back-up to start the search of Pollack's house. Charlie shuddered. It seemed even less real than before now that down in the basement of this clean, white-fenced house, there could be found such a hell.
"Buddy – you're safe now," Don's soothing voice was trying to get his attention then. "We caught them red-handed, they're gonna go away for a long time, and I'll make sure that none of them will ever hurt you again, ever."
Charlie almost smirked. Don was doing it again, or more to the point, he was still doing it, he was still making sure that Charlie was alright.
But that, Charlie realized, wasn't fair to him.
"You know it was all my fault," he said and fought to give his voice a firm tone. "Not just tonight, I also mean when we were kids. I was the one who did something stupid and ran away, not you."
He more felt than saw Don slowly shake his head, and his voice held something insecure when he replied, "Pollack's the one to be blamed for this, buddy. Both then and now."
"All I'm saying is that you don't have to make up for anything. You can stop being so overprotective."
Even while Charlie was saying the words, he realized that he should have phrased that differently, for recent events had shown very clearly that his big brother's overprotectiveness came in pretty handy at times, and that he should probably be thankful that in some regards, Don had absolutely no respect for his wish for personal space.
"Charlie, listen to me." The serious tone made Charlie look at him, and he was met with an expression that was fitting the voice. "I don't look out for you because I feel guilty. I look out for you because I don't want you to get hurt. Because I… I can't stand the idea of something bad happening to you."
Charlie felt his brow become furrowed while he was staring back into his brother's face. There it was again, the look in Don's eyes that he still hadn't quite deciphered, even though the emotion seemed so deep and so pure that he almost could have touched it with his hands. And yet, was there really much to decipher? If Charlie really cared to look, if he was being honest with himself – wasn't it all written out there clear as day?
Don was beat when he arrived at his childhood home. It had been a long and eventful day, not to mention the upsetting events of last night. However, it had been worth it. This day of interrogations and further digging had brought this case to a resolution that had come much sooner than either of them would have expected. And yet, Don would have preferred the more arduous way of checking witness reports and going through the files to this, to a resolution that had been fast, but that had also come at a steep personal price.
At least, he tried to cheer himself up, Charlie's kidnappers would all go to jail for a very long time, and not just because of what they'd done to him, but also because Don and his team had found sufficient evidence to prove their culpability concerning the porn website. And even if they hadn't found so much to convict them, Pollack's confession would probably have done the trick.
He'd told them how it had started, fourteen years ago. Henry Lambert, the former manager of the youth center and the oldest one of Charlie's kidnappers, had received complaints about Pollack sexually harassing some of the boys, and that was where their story became truly upsetting and sad. Instead of taking appropriate actions, Lambert had promised Pollack to let him off without so much as a slap on the wrist if, in return, he would let him watch. They had started making tapes then, and Lambert had also made some money on the side by distributing them to 'special customers', as they called them. Then, about a year ago, Lambert's nephew had joined their small clandestine organization and had taken them into the twenty-first century by building the porn website through which they had found them. It had been just around the time when Henry Lambert had retired and Mrs Svenson had taken over as the manager of the youth center, but by then, Pollack had not only become somewhat untouchable due to his good reputation among the youths and staff, but he'd also learned better which of the boys were least likely to bring forward any complaints.
Don shuddered. It was just so wrong that this place, which had been set up to give these kids hope and a better future, that this was where they had had to endure such torment.
He opened the door and greeted his dad, but didn't even wait for a greeting in return before he asked, "Where is he?"
His dad nodded towards the back door. "Outside. He said he needed to think." He paused for a second. "I didn't want to impose, but he's been out there for almost an hour."
Don let his gaze wander to the window, but couldn't spot his brother in the darkness outside. "How is he?" he asked eventually.
His dad didn't reply at once, and when he did, his voice was low and somehow despondent. "I honestly don't know. He claims he's fine, but I'm not sure. He hasn't really talked much."
"Well, time to find out then, right?" Don mumbled and headed outside, directing his legs to his brother with deliberately purposeful strides, just so that he would not lose his courage.
"Hey," he greeted his brother, suddenly feeling unaccountably nervous. Or maybe not so unaccountably after all. "Mind if I join you?"
Charlie made a slight turn of his head, just enough to glance at Don, before he turned his attention back to the night sky. "Go ahead."
"It's pretty damp," Don noticed when he lay down on the grass next to his brother. True, it was a very warm night for this time of year, but Don would have thought that after almost an hour in the damp grass, Charlie would have felt cold enough to stop his staring and return inside. Unless, of course, he was out here seeking refuge from an even greater discomfort.
Maybe that was why the question escaped his throat even without Don's conscious intention. "How are you doing?" His voice had been low, as though he hardly dared asking, and he had to admit, he was somehow afraid of Charlie's answer.
It didn't make things better when the reply did not come for several seconds. "Are you seeing this?" Charlie eventually asked, and Don turned his head sideways to look at him. He didn't know what to make of the fact that Charlie hadn't answered his question, nor of Charlie's tone. It seemed very calm, but Don couldn't tell whether the calmness was stemming from depression or from an actual inner sanctum his brother might have found.
"You mean the sky?" Don asked and decided to play by his brother's rules for the moment, turning his head back to stare into the endless black cloth.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Charlie gave back a question of his own, but still Don couldn't tell whether Charlie's observations were triggered by melancholy or by an actual sense of beauty. "And that even though you can only see a small fraction of everything that's going on up there, with all the light pollution we've got in the city. Remember the sky on your thirteenth birthday? That was a real night sky."
Don pressed his lips together. Why did Charlie have to bring up that night of all nights? Don could barely think about those events, why would Charlie choose to just blurt out a comment like that?
He hesitated, but the question had been burning on his mind for so long that he could no longer hold it back, especially not now. Still, he was reluctant to voice it, because he thought he knew the answer to it, but was desperate to hear his brother think of another explanation. "Why did you wander off? You should have stayed with us."
Charlie turned his head to face him, and something in his eyes told Don that his question was absurd, that they both knew the answer, and he felt his heart sink. "You didn't want me there," his brother replied with a simpleness that was tearing Don's heart in half. The worst part was that Don knew he was right. He hadn't wanted Charlie there, and he'd told him that. So Charlie had left.
"I guess I was a pretty crappy big brother," he said and felt his throat close up. He was staring into the night sky, blinking, and trying to make the sick feeling in his guts abate. It wasn't working.
Charlie was silent, and somehow, that was only making things worse, for Don could feel that they needed to talk about this, he needed to hear his brother's accusations, he needed to hear them in order to find excuses to justify his behavior. That silence, however, was worse than the most damning accusation.
"I don't know," Charlie eventually said, and Don was surprised to hear the thoughtful tone in his voice. "I mean, it's true that we weren't really close while growing up, but I don't think it would be right to solely blame you for that."
"But you never gave up on me," Don argued, remembering how Charlie would always come back to ask him to play with him, to go outside with him, to watch TV with him, basically to do anything that they could do together. "No matter how often I pushed you away, you always kept fighting for me. For us."
"That's just our roles though, isn't it? The stand-offish big brother and the annoying little brother. Anyway, I think I wouldn't have wanted to spend too much time with me either. I guess I wasn't easy to grow up with."
Don chuckled softly, he couldn't help it. Yes, as a kid, that had been exactly how he'd felt about that little pain in the ass. "You'd be surprised though how often other kids asked me to switch places with them, because they wanted you for their brother."
"Yeah," Charlie replied with a slightly bitter tone in his voice, "to exploit me for their math homework." He turned his head around to face Don, and the bitterness left his voice. "You never did that."
Don kept staring into the night sky and pressed his lips together. He didn't want to say it, but he felt he had to, he needed his brother to know that he didn't want to act like this. Still, his voice was very low when he uttered the self-accusation, as though he still didn't want to admit to it. "I'm kind of doing it now, aren't I? I'm taking advantage of your gift."
Again, Charlie's silence was difficult to bear, but again, his answer surprised Don. "I wouldn't say that. Whether or not you realize it, you're giving me back quite a lot. Anyway, I'm not thinking of it as some sort of trade. I enjoy working with you."
Don felt a smile spread out on his face. "Yeah. Me, too."
"And you've also gotta admit," Charlie went on, "even though I could be such an annoying math geek and you could be such an arrogant jock, we also had a bunch of really good moments while growing up. And anyway, the important thing is that you're not giving up on me now. I probably would have. I mean, with that whole debacle at the youth center and my groundless accusations of Pollack… I guess I wasn't all that easy to argue with, and all the while I was so obnoxious and conceited, but still, you bore with me."
Don frowned. What else would he have been supposed to do? And anyway, the events had proven him right, hadn't they? "Because Pollack was indeed part of this scheme. You were right."
Don turned his head sideways with surprise and just a little bit of apprehension when his words elicited soft laughter from his brother. "You never believed I was right. I didn't believe I was right, not really."
Don couldn't help it, he felt himself grin. This was feeling good. "There you have it. I know you better than you know yourself."
"Stop being so pretentious!" Charlie exclaimed with another laugh and lightly punched him in his side.
"Ouch!" Don said, even though it hadn't hurt, and gave the punch back, which in turn led Charlie to hit him again. "Oh, so you wanna fight, that's what you want?" Don challenged and with a swift movement rolled on his side, then tried to pin Charlie under him, who tried to fight him off. "Go ahead, but remember, I can still kick your ass."
Charlie indeed succeeded in making Don lose his balance so that he rolled back in the grass and then he managed to reverse their roles, but only for a moment. A second later, Don had the upper hand again, holding Charlie down so tightly that he could no longer move his arms.
"Okay, okay, I surrender," he panted and Don let go of him. He too was breathing rather heavily and he tried to remember when fighting with his little brother had become such an exhausting exercise.
"That should teach you," he said with a grin before he let himself fall back into the grass.
They were silent for a while, catching their breath and looking up into the night sky.
"Don," Charlie then said, but hesitated a second before going on, "I want to tell you something."
Don turned his head to study his brother, for his tone had made him a little uncertain, and he had to admit, the expression on Charlie's face was a little unsettling as well. Charlie was staring straight ahead into the sky, and he seemed a lot more sober than only a couple of minutes ago. "You know you can tell me anything."
Charlie nodded slightly. "I know." He paused, and Don thought he could see the wheels turn behind his brother's forehead as he was laying out the words in his mind. Eventually, he said, "Back then, after what happened with Pollack, I used to think that there was something wrong with me."
Don drew his eye-brows together. "Oh, buddy –"
"Let me finish, please. I was… I kept thinking that everybody hated me, and I think with most kids from school, that may have been pretty close to the truth. But I thought that… that everybody hated me, well, everybody besides Mom. And then, there was this man who, in a way, cared about me, who wanted me. And I figured that if the only person besides my own mother who loved me, who wanted me, was a monster like Pollack, that it made me some kind of monster as well."
Don stared at him. "You really felt that way?"
Charlie shrugged. "Sometimes. Other times, I didn't quite think of myself as a monster, but of someone who was simply unlovable. It felt as though nobody could stand me, and the only times people were nice to me were when they wanted something in return, like something math-related or… well, my body."
Don bit down his lip hard and tore his eyes away from his brother, into the sky, where there was no pain to be found, only beauty. He realized that his sight had become a little blurry, and he blinked the moisture away. It worked, and he was assailed by the wish that all bad things could be removed so easily, but he knew that they couldn't. Life had taught him that, and so he felt himself wishing that he could just turn back time and go back to the point before all this had happened, to the point where he would have asked Charlie to stay and never, ever leave.
"I can see now that I've had it all wrong," Charlie went on. His voice was thoughtful, and Don was surprised at its steadiness. "I've been doing quite a lot of thinking ever since yesterday, about my relationships to other people. I mean, I can see that Pollack sure as hell didn't love me. On the other hand, there were other people besides Mom and Dad who cared about me." As Charlie went on, Don heard the smile in his voice, "And from today's standpoint, I'm pretty sure I had Dad all wrong, too, I don't think he seriously thought I'd simply gotten what I deserved for wandering off." The smile grew wider still then. "You on the other hand… I've never figured you out completely, not until yesterday."
The comment made Don turn his head. "What are you saying?" he asked, wondering why his voice didn't show the same stability as the one of his little brother. "You know how I feel about you, there was never any question about that." And yet, given everything that Charlie had told him tonight, there obviously had been doubt, and Don knew he had to do away with that once and for all.
He had to, right?
He swallowed, but still his voice sounded rather small when he confessed, "You know that I love you."
Charlie's smile was back to its old force, making his eyes sparkle. "I do now," he replied. "But it's still nice to hear you say it. By the way," he added, "I love you, too."
Don blinked, but didn't find anything to say. Sure, he'd known that somehow. Yet, he had to see that Charlie was right: it did feel good to hear those words.
In the meanwhile, Charlie had resumed his observation of the night sky. "I guess that's always been my lifeline," he continued thoughtfully. But there was something else in his tone, something that made Don frown, a hint of despondency that hadn't been there before. "I mean, he hurt me, he invaded something of myself that… Anyway, that still doesn't seem so bad now, not the way it had been then. Because I know now, I understand what he's doing and why he's doing it and that it has nothing to do with me, that he was just using me, but that that's not because there's something wrong with me, it's because there's something wrong with him."
He gave a soft chuckle, and when Don looked at him, he could see a rueful smile on his face. "It sounds so cliched, but you know, to me, it really was like an epiphany. I just… I wish everybody could be as lucky as I was. I wish everyone could have someone there to tell them that no matter how badly they were hurt, it was still going to be okay, because they were being loved. Those children at the youth center… I just can't stop thinking about them. I mean, they were going back to that center despite everything they had to endure. I think that's the saddest part of it all, that they still chose to go there, because it was still the best option they had to find love and shelter."
Don swallowed and only now became aware of how dry his throat felt. He turned back to the beautiful black cloth above them and let Charlie's words rerun in his mind. He hadn't thought about it like this, and somehow, it made this whole thing even sadder than it had been before. At the same time, Don couldn't help but feel hope. He knew it was egotistical, but he just hoped that given everything that Charlie had laid out before him, he was going to be alright, because he knew he was loved.
"There!" Don said and pointed upwards, where a shooting star had just crossed the sky. "Did you see that?"
"Yeah," Charlie replied softly.
"Make a wish," Don said half jokingly, half earnestly. He felt a tearing sensation in his chest when he realized that there was only one wish on his mind, and that was to make his brother feel better about what had been done to him.
Charlie was silent for so long that Don was sure he wasn't going to participate in this childish game. In a way, he was glad, for he realized that he was afraid to hear Charlie's answer, afraid that Charlie would wish for something that Don wanted too, but with which he had no idea how to make it happen. Like, I wish I could turn back time. Or, I wish it would stop hurting.
When Charlie spoke, however, with the same quiet melancholy in his voice as before, he revealed a desire that was equally impossible for Don to fulfill, but that still didn't leave him without hope. "I just wish people would stop hurting each other."
Don turned his head to study his brother's features in the wane light, and what he saw made his hope become stronger. True, he wouldn't call the expression on Charlie's face happy, but neither was it showing the pain that he'd seen there yesterday. When he finally realized what it was, he felt himself smile. It was peace. Despite everything that had been done to him, Charlie seemed to have come to peace with the world, at least concerning his own suffering. And about the rest – well, that was what they got out of bed for every morning, wasn't it? Maybe they couldn't stop people from hurting other people on a world-wide scale, but they could still improve the world, they could stop the evil from spreading further and try to make the wrongs being done right again. And if he and Charlie could continue that fight side by side, that was enough to make him happy.
- finis -