Disclaimer: One last time: I own zero concerning the show. Besides, this is a work of fiction, so any names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Rating: T
Timeline: early season 4
A/N: Once again, thank you so much for your constant support during this series. I'm glad that you seem to have enjoyed the journey, and I hope you'll enjoy this last chapter as well.
Zeroed-In
It just didn't make any sense. There was no way this could be right, there had to be a flaw somewhere, he just couldn't find it, no matter how hard he was staring at the expression, at the white chalk dust on the dark green. He'd gone from there, he'd inserted the right values, but… no, there was no way he could have gone wrong. Yet, the result just couldn't be right.
Alright then, from the beginning. He'd started there, then –
Oh boy. There it was, the minus that had messed up the whole expression and that did so not belong there, and now that he looked at it, he could see that it wasn't really there either, that he'd merely written the times sign so badly that on the dusty board, he'd believed it to be a minus when he'd started the next line. He shook his head with a mixture of disbelief and annoyance. He'd better not tell Amita about this, it would only give her new ammunition to mock his penmanship.
A knock at his open office door made him turn around, and what or rather whom he saw made his eyes flash with joyful surprise.
"Ian!" he exclaimed when his gaze fell on Don and his fellow agent. "Now that's a nice surprise, what brings you here?"
"Hello to you, too," Don said with mock indignation before he turned around to their mutual friend with a badly suppressed smile on his lips. "See what I have to put up with here? If it weren't for you, he wouldn't even realize he's got visitors."
"Sorry, Don," Charlie said and flashed his brother a smile. "It's good to see you, too."
"Like I'm going to believe that now," Don went on acting, adding to Ian in a stage-whisper, "He's always been like this. Give him something new and he completely forgets to appreciate everything he already knows, even his own flesh and blood."
"It must have been some hellish years."
"You bet," Don agreed, while Charlie tried to protest.
"I didn't mean growing up with him," Ian specified. "I meant raising the two of you beneath the same roof."
Charlie felt himself grin and saw the expression mirrored on his brother's face as Don admitted, "Yeah, I guess it was."
"Anyway," Ian said, and while there remained a humorous spark in his eyes, his whole demeanor sobered up considerably. "We're here because I'd like to pick your brain on a case I've been working on, a man I'm trying to hunt down. Have you ever heard of Jeremiah Brown?"
"I don't think I have," Charlie replied thoughtfully, rummaging through his brain. Then again, he wasn't particularly good with names.
"I've followed him here all the way from Utah. He's a sniper, a hired assassin," Ian explained, "and a damn good one, too. He has one specific MO that he sticks to every time, and he never fails. He's using a rifle, small caliber, but always effective because the shot's always well-aimed, always at the chest. He generally hits his target straight in the heart, but even if he didn't, the projectile would probably cause a big enough wound to do organ damage beyond repair. His success rate is almost legendary in his circles, and he only takes on high-profile cases with good pay. He's also meticulous, he stalks out his victim for days prior to the assault, making sure to commit the perfect crime and not leaving behind any clues or loose ends. To give you an example of his diligence: once, there was this high-class business-man, Hamilton O'Sullivan, also one of Brown's victims. In the moment Brown pulled the trigger though, a sudden noise had made O'Sullivan turn around, and instead of being fatal, the bullet merely injured him. O'Sullivan was put in a safe house then, and all measures were being taken to make sure Brown couldn't get to him again. It was three weeks later, the first time that O'Sullivan stepped towards the window leading to the balcony, that Brown finished the job, putting another bullet in his chest. O'Sullivan died on scene."
Charlie shuddered at hearing Ian's cold report on the guy's efficiency, but also frowned, not really seeing where he was entering the mix. "If you already know so much about him, then what am I supposed to do? You even know his name, can't you just trace him through that?"
"Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated than that," Ian explained. "As a matter of fact, Jeremiah Brown is only one of his aliases, and from what I found, it seems not to be the one he's using to pay for rent or his expenses, not anymore. He uses disguises, too, so checking clues from tipsters can be a very tedious task that doesn't often lead anywhere."
"Then how did you manage to follow him here?"
There was a grin on Ian's face, but the serious expression in his eyes never left. "What do you think, Professor? I simply figured where I myself would have gone." Charlie didn't quite know how to react to that, so he was glad when Ian went on, soberly, "Besides, he left a trail of two bodies. As I said, he doesn't leave behind a lot of clues, but it was enough to follow him here, where I guess he wants to perform his next job. The problem is that I don't really have a way to narrow down where he might be hiding out, not before he scores next, and I'd like to avoid that."
Charlie ran a hand through his hair. To tell the truth, he was rather busy at the moment, but he also had to admit that he'd like to avoid another shooting, too. Besides, once he'd have corrected the result on his chalkboard, he'd have to let that run through his programs first before he could continue on that, so he did have a little time on his hands. And since Ian's case seemed to be the kind of work that required crunching a lot of data, he'd better not waste any more time to get started on that.
"And you're still convinced we're gonna find him in one of these fifteen places?" Ian asked, his voice heavy with skepticism.
Don chuckled softly. "You were the one who wanted his help. Now you gotta trust his process."
Ian gave a grunt at that. Yes, he had come to Charlie for help, but he also had to admit that he'd been rather desperate at the time, and that he hadn't really nourished much hope that a mathematical consult would get him anywhere. The fact that now, only three days later, and thus before another shooting had occurred, he'd have some substantial results – well, it almost seemed too good to be true. And given that they'd already been to nine of the places on Charlie's list and had found nothing whatsoever to make them think they had found Brown's hiding-place, the bad feeling had intensified.
Then again, he'd seen the mathematician perform his magic before – and he'd underestimated him before. Maybe he should give him the benefit of the doubt.
"He did say something about an 82 per cent chance," Megan reminded them then, just when Ian had managed to restore his faith. "That still leaves 18 per cent of going back to square one."
Ian nodded. Yes, that was true. Then again, he was glad that Charlie had given them the results despite them being preliminary. Who would have thought he'd actually listened when Ian had stressed the time-sensitivity of this job?
When they knocked at the door of the motel room, there was no answer, but thankfully (for the agents, not for the residents), the landlord of this shabby building was sufficiently used to police checking the place not to make any fuss about a warrant. Instead, he opened the door for them, and merely told them to shut it upon leaving before he scuffed back down the corridor.
They edged into the room, guns at their ready, but there was indeed no one in here. The room, however, was speaking for itself, as much as one could call it 'speak' instead of being silent. There was hardly anything in here, but they did find more than enough to convince them that this was their guy. There were maps of both Utah and California scattered on the table, and under some clothing, they found some ammunition that seemed appropriate for the kind of rifle that had been used in the assassinations.
"I'm calling David," Don informed them while retrieving his cell from his belt. "I'd say we can pull off the search of the other places."
Ian didn't say anything, but he agreed with Don. This was either a very unlikely coincidence, or, and that was the option that his money was on, they'd finally found their guy. Who would have ever thought that math would get him this far.
He started the search of a small drawer near the bed. There were some clothes in there, but mostly documents, and Ian pulled them out and spread them on the mattress. Only now did the realization hit that despite having found Brown's hide-out, they might still be too late. Brown wasn't here, which could mean that he was out stalking his victim, but since he'd been here for several days now, it was also likely that he was doing the job he was hired to do right now – and that meant they had to somehow identify the victim and find a way to warn them, fast.
Thus hastened in their search, he and Megan browsed through the papers. There was a lot in there of past cases, which they knew about and put aside, but there was no –
"There!" Megan exclaimed and held out a picture towards him. "That's in LA, in fact it's pretty close to the FBI."
Ian gave the picture hardly more than a glance. There were no people in it, at least none in focus, so that picture didn't help them to identify the next victim. They needed to –
"What the –" the words escaped his mouth when he'd found what they'd been looking for. Yet, the picture felt so wrong and out of place that for a moment, he was sure he had to be mistaken. He took a closer look, tried to find something that would prove him wrong, but there was nothing.
On the contrary.
"Oh my G-d," he heard Megan breathe, and the shock in her voice made it clear that even though she had a different picture in her hands, she was seeing the same thing as him, and now that he'd found more pictures, more clues to follow, there was no longer doubt that he'd been right.
"Don!" Megan called out and was already up and on her way to pull her boss outside with her, to their car.
"I'm staying here in case Brown comes back!" Ian called out after them, now more than ever set on not letting this killer-machine run again. They needed to catch him, now, before he had a chance to get to his victim.
He clenched his jaw, and his fist was clenched, too, while he was staring down at the picture in his hand, at the thick red circle around the curly head of a well-known mathematician.
Don was still running down the stairs of the motel when he was hitting speed-dial for his brother. He still didn't know what was going on, but he had enough information to know that his alarm was justified and that there wasn't a moment to be lost.
Come on, pick up, he thought feverishly while they were running towards his car.
"Give me the keys!" Megan said and maybe it was her tone that didn't even make Don hesitate, maybe it was the realization that his priority was talking to his brother.
"Damn it!" he cursed when his call went to voice-mail.
"Try again," Megan said tersely as she started the engine.
Don was rubbing his forehead, listening to the beeps, when indeed, the call connected. He didn't even leave his brother time to respond the phone though, but immediately asked, "Charlie, where are you?"
"Don? What –"
"Where are you right now?" Don repeated, sharper this time.
"In my office, what's –"
"Lock the door and move away from the windows," Don interrupted him harshly.
"What?" Charlie asked, still more confused than anything else. "Don, what's –"
"Lock the door, Charlie, now, and keep it locked until we're there."
There was a brief pause before Charlie's voice came back, more trembling than before. "Alright, I locked the door. Now what's –"
"Are you staying away from the windows?"
Another pause. "I am now. Don… if this is just some sort of prank –"
"No prank, Charlie," Don interrupted him again, but started to breathe a little more easily now that he knew that one, Brown hadn't gotten to his newest target yet, and two, he wouldn't succeed for the next few minutes either, until Don could make personally sure that Charlie was safe. "You're next on Brown's list," he explained then, thinking it couldn't hurt if Charlie realized how serious the situation was.
There was another pause on his brother's end, but this time, Don could hear the shock over the phone, the held breath. "I'm what?" he then heard Charlie's hoarse whisper.
Don bit his lip. He didn't understand either what was going on and he had no idea how it could have come to this, but there was no denying that it was Charlie who'd become Brown's new person of interest. He was still holding the picture in his hand that Megan had thrust at him upon leaving, a picture showing Charlie exiting the FBI building, apparently completely unaware that he was being watched by someone trying to kill him.
"Look," he said, but had to clear his throat before he could go on, "Megan and I are on our way and we're gonna take you someplace safe." Even though, Don had to admit to himself, they first needed to figure out where that might be. Safe houses weren't what they used to be when they were up against someone like Brown, as Hamilton O'Sullivan's example had shown all too clearly. "Just stay where you are until we're there, don't open the door and don't let yourself be seen from the windows, understood?"
Again, it took a second before Charlie's voice was back, and it still wasn't very strong or elaborate. "Yeah."
"Alright, buddy, hang in there, we're coming," Don ended the call and let his gaze linger on the picture in his hand, the questions coming at him harder now that the danger had been banned for the time being. How was this possible? How could this case have turned from a manhunt into this? How could it have happened that in a matter of minutes, they'd abandoned the role of the hunting party and had become the hunted?
He took a shaky breath. It was of no use complaining about the role reversal. He just had to roll with it, do the best he could and make sure that his little brother wasn't going to get killed in the process.
The next fifteen minutes were probably the longest ones in Don's life, and while he considered Megan a very capable driver, it was all he could do not to constantly criticize her speed, or rather her slowness. Yes, he could see the cars in front of them, and yes, he understood that they couldn't just squeeze through them merely because they had to, but there was also the sidewalk, and anyway, why did those stupid cars take so long to react to their siren? This was an emergency, damn it!
In the meanwhile, he tried to busy himself with figuring out where to put his brother once they'd left CalSci, and decided that for the time being, the FBI would have to do. They could find a suitable safe house later, their first priority was getting Charlie away from any places where he might get shot.
It was another five minutes before arriving at CalSci when a phone call from Ian relieved him from the panic he was experiencing, leaving behind merely tension, alarm and fear, emotions that still enabled him to function. Ian had continued the search of Brown's motel room, and he'd found a rifle under the bed, the caliber fitting the ones used on the other victims, which had to mean that Brown wasn't out hunting. Granted, it was very well possible that killing Charlie was still on top of his agenda, and that he was out right now stalking his prey, but the important thing was that apparently, he wasn't ready to make the final move yet, which gave them valuable time to thwart his plans.
That, however, also meant that there was a good chance that Brown was somewhere on campus, and if they wanted to make some use of the blessing in disguise they'd been given, they had better tread carefully. If they did this right, they still had a chance of catching Brown before he hurt another soul. All they had to do was move about this carefully, not draw attention to themselves when they took Charlie with them, and arrest an unsuspecting Brown upon his return to his motel room. So even though it seemed more than a little counter-intuitive, Don and Megan decided to turn off the siren and park the car in the parking lot, as though this was just another visit to ask for Charlie's consult.
Once they had gotten out of the car though, sticking to their plan became even more of a challenge for Don. He had to fight the urge to start running, to get to his brother sooner and make sure he was alright. At the same time, it was hard not to turn around and see if he might not spot Brown somewhere. Saying he was feeling uncomfortable would have been an understatement, it felt as though him and Megan were sitting ducks, just waiting to walk into Brown's trap. The effect was worsened by the fact that there was hardly anyone else around, it was evening, and the campus was almost deserted. Then again, Don knew quite well that it wasn't him or Megan that Brown was after, so he told himself to breathe and focus. Especially once they'd found Charlie, he needed to make sure to exude calm, or else Brown would know that something was up, which might prompt him to change his plans.
"Charlie, open up, it's me and Megan," he called out when they'd finally reached Charlie's closed office door.
It was a couple of tense seconds before they heard a key turn in the lock and then an apparition opened, a white face with wide, dark eyes that seemed to be flickering.
It took Don a second to find his voice again. He'd never seen his brother so scared, but that was exactly why they shouldn't waste a moment to take him someplace safe.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked tersely.
Charlie merely nodded and busied himself with closing the door. As he was turning the key around in the lock, Don could see how badly his hands were shaking.
"He might be watching us, but we're safe for now, so just act as though you're coming with us to consult on a case," he told his brother in a low voice.
"Where are we going?" Charlie asked. His voice was hoarse and up close, there were ample signs to show that he wasn't feeling at ease by a long shot, but Don just hoped that Brown wouldn't be able to notice that from afar.
"We're gonna take you someplace safe," he replied vaguely. True, this late in the day, there weren't many people left in the building or on the campus they now stepped out on, but one could never be too careful.
Charlie was silent, and Don was thankful for that. He could do very well without any further questions that he didn't have an answer to, or an answer that none of them wanted to hear. Like, For how long? No one could tell at this point. Maybe they'd apprehend Brown tonight, maybe in a couple of months, maybe never. What am I going to do there? Well, depending on what else they would find out, it would probably just be some other form of prison, one that might not allow any visitors whatsoever.
Bang.
The sound was so sudden, yet so loud and forceful, that it seemed to rip a tear into the fabric that was making up this mortal world, and deep down, where all those primitive emotions like fear and rage were rooted, Don knew that it had. His mind had not yet come to analyze the situation, but his guts had already decided that something bad had happened, something so bad that his mind was building up barricades, sealing itself off from the world outside in a desperate attempt not to feel obliged to analyze what these merciless forces of time and space had just thrown at him.
And yet, Don knew that the attempt was futile. There was no barricade, there was nothing, his mind was empty, there was only one thought there that had settled in and that was neither budging nor stopping its spreading, it was conjuring up both images of the imminent future and images of the past where there had been ample opportunity to give the flow of time another direction to expand into, to prevent this catastrophe that was still taking place, here and now, where the possibilities had been commuted to reality, irreversible and unchangeable.
So during those precious moments of potentiality, the catastrophe had not been prevented, and that was what Don instantly knew when he felt his brother jerk beside him and go down. Don's reflexes kicked in then, and while he was kneeling down beside him, half shielding him with his body, he pulled out his gun and stretched it out before him, without a still aim, looking for the shooter, looking for the rifle he knew had to be out there somewhere.
A second rifle. A second deadly weapon that they hadn't taken into account, that they hadn't known to exist, but that nonetheless had deadly potential.
"Up there!" he heard Megan shout next to him, pointing towards the roof of a small building maybe three-hundred yards ahead. The next moment, she had taken off, and despite the rupture in the world's fabric, their wordless communication was still working. I go after him, you stay here with Charlie.
Don swallowed, watching her run off and knowing that he had to hold up his end of the bargain, that he needed to take care of his brother. At the same time, however, he was acutely aware of the fact that he just couldn't do it. For he knew, he'd known the second that he'd heard the bang, that there was no reason to hope. They knew this assassin, they'd seen his handiwork, and therefore, Don didn't have to look at his brother to know what he would see: the bullet hole in his chest, the blood trickling from the wound, and the pained lines on his face that would soon turn into a death mask, extinguishing the spark in his eyes and leaving behind nothing but the lifeless shell, nothing but a cruel reminder of what he'd lost.
"Don," he heard his brother's strained voice beside him, tense, yet somehow soft, bespeaking his dwindling life forces.
Don pressed his lips together and turned his head, forcing himself to look into Charlie's face and nowhere else, yet unable to stop the tears from springing to his eyes.
"It's okay, buddy," he said and blindly reached for Charlie's hand, gripping it tightly, not allowing him to go to a place where he couldn't follow him. "You're gonna be fine," he continued, but had to realize that his body was much more honest than his words, for it was refusing its service, refusing to make itself a mouthpiece of the lies Don so desperately wanted to believe in.
"You'll see," he tried again. "It's..."
But it was of no use. He couldn't go on. All he could do was grip his brother's hand more tightly and do his best to prevent the tears from spilling.
Charlie was still looking up at him, his facial features still contorted from the pain and his eyes still dulled, but the spark in them was still there, he still hadn't lost him. Yet.
He could tell that Charlie wanted to say something and he wanted to stop him, not wanting him to waste his strength, but more than anything not wanting to hear his brother's goodbye. His body was once again betraying him, though, his voice still wasn't working, he couldn't stop him.
"I'm wearing a vest."
It took several second for the words to register. When they had, Don still wasn't sure he'd heard right. His mind was still reeling with desperate attempts how to stop the inevitable, and so he was almost certain that he was merely hallucinating, that he was just hearing those words because he wanted to hear them, that his mind's solution to come to terms with this was to make up an alternative reality, one that would not entail his destruction.
His hope, however, had been reborn.
"What?" he asked, his words hardly more than a breeze.
"A bulletproof vest," Charlie specified, his voice still strained and his words coming out in gasps, but coming out with a meaning that gave Don's hope new strength. "I'll be fine, I guess, it just… it really hurts."
Only now did Don allow his eyes to wander down his brother's body, and when they landed on his chest, what he'd thought to be a mere hallucination got more substance, got closer still to becoming reality. The tear in the fabric of the world seemed to slowly mend while he was analyzing the tear in the fabric of Charlie's shirt. It was a tear, true, just like he'd feared, but there was no blood oozing from anywhere, and as much as Don's mind tried to stop him from giving in to his hope too much, he knew that even though Charlie's shirt was dark, he should have been able to see the blood if it had been there. But there wasn't any, so this had to mean –
"You're wearing a vest?!" he meant to burst out, but the words were hardly more than a whisper. "Why didn't you tell me? And where the hell did you get that from?"
"It's a long story," Charlie panted. "I was going to tell you in the car."
He let out a small cry of pain then, squirming and pressing Don's hand in a desperate attempt to get some relief.
"Professor Eppes?"
The trembling voice had come from Don's left and he jerked his head around, still feeling as though someone else had taken control over his body, as though he was merely watching this strange scene from afar.
"Stay back and take cover!" he snapped at the two students that were slowly, carefully drawing nearer. He could see the shock on their faces, just like on the faces of the half dozen people a couple of yards behind them, people who were still screaming and crying, creating a background noise Don hadn't been aware of until now. "And call 911, he's been shot."
"Our friend is calling them right now," the boy gave back, pointing with his thumb at a girl behind them who was talking into a phone. He hesitated. "Is he..." he started to ask, but didn't finish the question.
"Just stay back and take cover," was all that Don offered. "We don't need any more casualties."
From the corners of his eyes, he watched them obey his orders and hide behind some bushes. In the meanwhile, he took off his jacket and rolled it to a ball that he then held against the hole in Charlie's shirt.
"Ahh!" his gesture got him from his brother, and his squirming set in again. "What are you doing?!"
"We don't want anyone to see you're not bleeding," Don replied in a low voice and pretended to press down against Charlie's wound. Then, he finally called in the shooting, also requesting back-up for Megan. He noticed that his voice still hadn't returned to its full strength, but at least his mind was slowly resuming its task and analyzing the situation. "We need to make sure that Brown thinks he finished the job so that he won't come back and try again," he explained to his brother.
For a moment, Charlie looked up at him, and the naked fear in his eyes mingling with the pain constricted Don's throat tightly. It was one thing that the bullet hadn't accomplished the task the assassin had had in mind, but it was way too early to give the all-clear signal. Brown had shown in the past that he was diligent, that he never left a job unfinished, so if he ever learned that Charlie was still alive, he would come back and strike again. Even worse, Hamilton O'Sullivan's fate had shown them that not even the federal witness protection program was enough to keep someone safe once Brown had decided to kill them. So the most effective way to make sure that Brown wouldn't try again, in fact the only way that Don could see, was to make him believe that he'd succeeded already.
And in the meanwhile, they had to make sure that Charlie was indeed going to survive the attack.
He looked into his brother's contorted face. Charlie had closed his eyes by now, and pearls of sweat had formed on his forehead. Under his hand, even though he was trying not to exert any pressure on Charlie's chest, Don could feel that his brother's breathing had become flat, the gasps coming in short, broken intervals.
As inconspicuously as he could, he felt for the vest with his other hand, trying to gauge the damage that had been done to Charlie's body despite the protection he'd been wearing. The thought made his fear come back with a vengeance, bringing with it a sudden twinge of nausea. They knew that Brown always used a rifle, and thus a weapon that even with the relatively small caliber Brown was using was forceful enough that it tended to give the lie to the term 'bulletproof'.
"Are you sure the vest caught the bullet?" he asked worriedly, yet trying not to show how scared he was. "They're not really made for rifles."
"It was only planned as a safety precaution," Charlie mumbled. His eyes were still closed and apparently, he wasn't even realizing that he hadn't answered Don's question. "We never thought I'd need it, or at least I didn't."
Don frowned, and despite the fact that he had more important things to worry about, he couldn't ban the question from his mind: what was that we that Charlie was talking about?
Before he could ask though, Charlie posed another very relevant question. "What about Megan?"
"She'll be alright," Don told his brother with more confidence than he felt, but forbade himself to leave a doubt on his mind. Until now, Brown had never deviated from his pattern, and as far as they knew, he'd never killed or merely hurt anybody without acting on an assignment.
However, until now, he'd never been directly chased either.
Don ran a hand over his mouth and chin. Megan should never have gone after him, not without back-up. If something happened to her…
The sound of sirens caught his attention then and he forced himself to think of his brother for now. As soon as he'd know him in good hands, he could make sure his partner was okay as well.
He paused. He could, couldn't he? On the other hand, if Brown learned that Charlie was still alive and came back…
He shook his head to make the thought go away and told himself to think about that when he had to, for now, he had other priorities, he needed to make sure that Charlie was going to be alright.
"Stay right there!" he called out to the paramedics that had just opened the rear of the car. "The shooter might still be around." To his brother, he added in a low voice, "I'll try not to hurt you, but you might still wanna grit your teeth."
The next moment, he'd taken Charlie up in his arms and felt him go rigid. He heard some soft moaning, but other than that, Charlie seemed to stick to Don's advice and remained quiet.
In the meanwhile, Don made his way to the ambulance, doing his best not to let his brother fall. He didn't really have a good grip on his upper body and he was strongly tempted to readjust it, but refrained from doing so, knowing it probably wouldn't be agreeable to whatever injuries Charlie had sustained from the shot.
While one of the paramedics helped Don to lay Charlie down on the gurney, the other one was about to close the car door, apparently fairly freaked out about Don's mention of the shooter.
"Hold on!" Don stopped him and for a moment, he felt so torn that he literally would have liked to just leave one part of him there with Charlie while the other one made sure that Megan was alright. "I need to go after Megan," he told his brother while at the same time feeling that he couldn't go through with that. Yet, he knew that Charlie was in good hands for now, at any rate safer than Megan was.
He was just about to jump out of the ambulance car when she appeared at its opening, right where Charlie had been shot.
"I'm so sorry, I lost him," she said breathlessly, and in her eyes, Don could see that her words didn't even come close to conveying how badly she felt for not catching Brown. That didn't matter though, not now, the important thing was that they were safe for now, all of them.
"I'm going with Charlie," was all that Don told her as he tossed her the car keys she'd handed him earlier. Then, he helped the paramedic close the doors and took a seat next to his brother, trying to calm down and let it all settle in.
He needed a clear head to decide what to do next.
"There's Megan," David pointed her out, which led Colby to a rather rough stopping maneuver. They jumped out of the car and ran towards her, anxiously waiting for her to turn around so they could see her face – and gauge the situation.
"Megan!" Colby called out towards her, which finally made her face them, but the expression they saw… David had never seen her like this. She seemed distraught and erratic and, which was the worst part, on the verge of crying.
"We heard about the shooting on the police scanner, what happened?" Colby asked, but David could tell that the tone of his voice had changed ever so slightly. It was no longer dominated by alarm and tension; the underlying emotions had changed position so that now, the dominating one was fear.
"Charlie's been shot," Megan replied with an obvious effort to keep it together. "They just drove off to the hospital."
David felt his head turn and the next moment, he was looking into Colby's eyes, seeing his own question mirrored there, but it was Colby who had the strength to voice it, "How bad?"
"He was shot right in the chest," Megan fought to get the words out, her voice becoming weaker still. She turned sideways, bringing up a hand to her mouth to keep the sobs inside, but still, the woman that David would have foremost described as 'strong' on any given day was now looking like a picture of misery, so much so that Colby stepped forward, taking her in his arms.
It was that image that burned itself into David's mind, and it was only now that he was watching his colleagues' grief that the realization was slowly dawning on him, penetrating that shell of positive attitude he'd fought to keep up around him. This wasn't just another shooting, not just another adventure that they would come out of unscathed. No, this time, there would be no happy celebration of a case closed. This time, as incomprehensible as it was, fate seemed to have decided to be so much more brutal and to leave them with a loss that could not be repaired.
"Are you okay?" Don asked worriedly and took in his brother's battered form. He did definitely not look okay. He was sitting there on a slab, slightly hunched over, and making an obvious effort to breathe regularly. As if the wheezing sound wouldn't have been enough, he was also presenting a picture of misery optics-wise, staring ahead with his eyes wide, unable to focus on anything other than whatever horror show was playing on his mind.
"Let's just say I was a lot better two hours ago," he said. There was still a strain in his voice, and he was panting a little, it obviously wasn't that easy to keep breathing and talking at the same time. "It's awfully cold in here, and it hurts to shiver."
Right. Don hadn't noticed that, but now that Charlie had mentioned it, he had to agree with him. And after all, they were down in the morgue, it was always quite cool down there. Coming here, however, had been necessary, and even though he still had no idea how to go on about this, Don had to admit, he had to feel lucky about how things had turned out so far. When the paramedics had realized he was a federal agent acting in official business, they'd eventually consented to complying with his orders, even though they had been far from common. Yet, Don had managed to convince them to play along – and to keep their silence on the matter. They had tended to Charlie's wounds the best they could and had left them in the care of the mortician – which, however, was a fact that despite the man's medical degree didn't really make Don feel much better about this whole thing.
Now, there were two more things that Don needed to take care of, and with neither one did he have any idea how to go about that. One, he needed to find a doctor who could treat Charlie properly and still keep quiet about that, and two, he needed to somehow make sure that Charlie didn't show up in any official documents, or in the hospital's patient system.
So yes, the pressure of having to figure out what to do about that left Don quite heated, while his brother was sitting there on the examination table with a bare chest that was starting to sport some ugly discoloration. Yet, the largeness of the area where the bruises were forming was somehow comforting, for it meant that the vest, as thin as it was, had been able to not only stop the bullet, but also spread its impact on a much larger surface and thereby reduce the damage considerably, doing wonders Don wouldn't have thought the fabric capable of. Whomever Charlie had been working for, they did definitely have the budget to purchase state-of-the-art innovations, which in this case might very well have saved his life.
Yet, there had still been damage, and the cold obviously wasn't helping, so Don took off his jacket and put it around his brother's shoulders. "Better?" he asked and let his hand stay on his brother's shoulder for good measure.
"Thanks," Charlie replied softly, but the haunted look in his eyes was still there. Yet, haunted or not, Don knew that if he was to do something about this, he needed to know what they were dealing with.
"So how come you just happened to wear protective gear? Have you known this whole time that Brown was after you, or what?"
Charlie closed his eyes, and for a moment, seeing the pinched expression on his face, Don thought he was being rolled over by a new wave of pain. Then however, Charlie's words came out, mumbling and soft, but still very well audible in the quiet room. "I… I'm not really at liberty to discuss that."
Don stared at him. "You're not serious, right?" he said, noticing that a dangerous note had entered his voice, and he could feel the anger flare up inside him. "You mind telling me how I'm supposed to keep you safe if you're not telling me what this is about?!"
Charlie opened his eyes, but still didn't lift his head to look at him. "You're not," he replied in a small voice and visibly swallowed.
"Pardon me?!" it burst out of Don, which made Charlie first flinch, then wince with pain.
"Look, this… this hasn't really gone according to plan –"
"No kidding!" Don exclaimed, unable to keep his anger inside. What on earth was going on in his brother's head?! Someone had just tried to kill him, and instead of cooperating to figure out how to deal with this whole mess, Charlie was was working against him, referring to some misguided notion of secrecy!
At Don's exclamation, Charlie had given another start, but went on seemingly undeterred, "You were never supposed to get dragged into this, it's just that I… I have been working on something for somebody."
Don looked heavenwards, still irritated, yet somehow appeased by the confirmation that it hadn't been Charlie's FBI consulting that had gotten them in this mess. "By all means, please don't get too specific," he grumbled with dripping sarcasm.
Again, Charlie swallowed thickly, but made an effort to finally do some explaining. "It's… it's a really big case, and very, very confidential. I've been working on that for several months now, and the… the people I work with, they were in my office when you called me, and when they learned about Brown, they had to act on their feet to figure out something to keep me safe. They wanted to take me to a safe house, but… there were still some points that they had to clear up before they could do that, so they figured that it would be the best solution for everyone to let you and your team take over for the moment. After all, Brown is your case, it's somehow your jurisdiction. So they fetched me a vest from their car, just as a precaution, and then they left to figure out how to go about this now, and I expect them to contact me any moment." He shook his head ruefully. "I'm sorry, I would have never dreamed that someone would try to get to me because of that… project, and anyway, I wasn't allowed to talk about any of this. Technically, I'm still not allowed to. Besides, the less you know about this whole mess, the better, trust me."
Suddenly, there were noises coming from the adjacent room, footsteps, and Don's hand instantly went to his holster while his left arm automatically went up to shield his brother from anything that might come through that door.
It opened, and in stepped a doctor – or in any case, a man in a white coat – flanked by two grim-looking nondescript guys that, if looks weren't too deceiving, did definitely not work in this hospital.
"FBI," Don tried to stop their entrance, "stay back –"
"Put the gun down, Agent, we're not your problem here," one of them said, a sandy-haired bloke who had to be around Don's age and, with those sharp, clean-shaven edges on his face, reminded him a little of Colby.
"I told you to stay right there," Don repeated, taking a step to the left so that he was now blocking his brother more efficiently from the newcomers.
Before he could get to the bottom of this, however, he heard Charlie's voice in his back. "It's okay, Don, they won't hurt us."
Don swallowed, but didn't take his weapon down, not yet. "You sure?" he asked his brother, hoping he would understand that by answering affirmatively, he would put both their lives in these men's hands.
"I trust them, unconditionally," was Charlie's simple reply that, however, was uttered with such earnestness that it still told Don enough. "That's them, they're the ones I was with when you told me about Brown."
And gave him the vest that saved his life, Don added in his mind, so for the moment, he trusted them enough to lower his weapon. "Who are you?" he then asked the question that in principle had been haunting his mind ever since he'd learned about the vest his brother had been wearing.
"NSA," was the short answer that at this point didn't really come as a surprise, but didn't really explain anything either. "I'm Agent Nate Greene," the Colby-doppelganger introduced first himself before he gestured at his slightly smaller, dark-haired partner, "and this is Agent Philip Brinkley, and now we should let this good doctor get a look at our patient without further ado."
That was a proposal that Don, despite his never-ceasing mistrust, had nothing to counter, so he stepped aside.
"So how's it going, Charlie?" Nate asked while the doctor, whose nervousness and apprehension clearly showed in his hesitant movements, stepped forward to examine him. At the words, Don allowed himself to relax a little further. Greene's words might have come out with a casualness that wasn't called for, but there was unmistakably a note of concern evident in his tone.
And rightly so.
"How do you think he's doing?" Don asked, not really knowing when exactly his mistrust had turned into anger. "You got him shot!"
"Don –" Charlie tried to calm him down, and Don didn't know what to think about the fact that this Agent Greene fellow interrupted him, being the voice of reason.
"It's okay, Charlie, I'm gonna explain the situation to him in private. Philip, you stay with him and Doctor Hansen?"
Philip, who for all Don knew might have been mute, nodded, which Nate took as his cue to pull Don back outside into the anteroom.
"Look, Don – I can call you Don, right? We know this hasn't gone quite as planned, but that's why we're doing everything we can to clear this matter up without putting Charlie at any more risk, so you just need to leave this matter to us and stay out of our way, do you understand?"
"Leave what to you, exactly?" Don gave back, not willing to just step down like this, not when they were talking about his brother's safety. "What's this whole thing about?"
"Nothing that concerns you. Charlie's been working on something classified for us, and the less you know about it, the better."
The words were tugging at something in Don's memory before he recalled his brother's earlier words, which had been basically the same. He'd felt irritated then, and he'd thought that his anger would only increase now that someone told him to stay out of this that he definitely trusted less than Charlie, but he felt that there were more important things to think about now. So what if Charlie's work was classified? It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last. What mattered most now wasn't the case lying at the bottom of this, but to keep his brother safe, and until Don had a definite idea how to do that, he'd sure as hell not let himself deviate from finding a solution.
"So what's your plan?" he asked and tried not to grit his teeth.
"Same as yours, apparently. Charlie needs to die, at least officially. In the meanwhile, we'll do whatever we can to finish that project that got him in this predicament, while I suggest that you and your team continue hunting down Brown."
Don was frowning. Yes, this was very similar to his own plan, but Greene was voicing that with an air of confidence that had hardly anything to do with the concern and apprehension that Don had been feeling about this matter. Besides, he didn't really like taking orders from some random NSA agent, much less from one who'd gotten his brother shot.
Greene seemed to register if not the doubt, then at least the reluctance, for he went on, "We both know it's the only way to keep him safe, and it's only for a couple of days, until we'll have cleared the matter up. We're really close to finishing our case, and once that is done and Brown is taken care of, we can all go back to business as usual."
Don was shaking his head. As much as Greene's idea was in line with his own, he still didn't like it, at least not like this, when he was supposed to let someone else take the helm. Besides, declaring someone dead was not only illegal, but also tended to put the 'dead' person at risk, for you could hardly be convicted for a crime against someone who no longer existed.
"If you really want what's best for Charlie," he therefore asked, knowing that he couldn't let go of his mistrust just yet, "then why are you trying to keep him in the dark about what's going on here? Why did you drag me out here to explain your plan to me if it's not because you're worried Charlie might hear it as well?"
Greene looked at him with a serious expression in his eyes, one that seemed earnest and honest. "Because I don't want him to worry about these technical details of who knows what. We both know, you probably better than anyone, that he tends to act impulsively when he feels strongly about something, and we can't have him going rogue while we're trying to protect him. We need to give him the feeling that everything is settled on the home front so he can concentrate on finishing what we started."
Don was back to shaking his head, even though he wasn't sure he understood what Greene was saying. "You're just using him –"
"We're not using him," Greene interrupted him. "We employed him, but finishing this project is just as much in Charlie's own interest as it is in ours. If someone hired Brown to eliminate Charlie for what he's working on, it means that somehow, despite all our precautions, word got out as to his role in this project. And trust me, Don, this case is big, so big that there are a lot of people out there willing to kill for it, and people powerful enough to achieve their goal."
Don was once again tempted to ask what on earth this project was that Charlie had gotten himself mixed up with, but realized he had more pressing issues at hand. "So how do you want to go about in this matter? How are we supposed to declare Charlie dead?"
"That's already settled. Doctor Hansen in there is going to sign the death certificate, and according to the hospital's computers, Charlie's already registered as deceased." Greene must have noticed the incredulous look on Don's face, for he explained, "When you show them the right paperwork and credentials, they're quite willing to cooperate. So now it's the two paramedics, the mortician, the doctor, Charlie, Philip, you and me, that's eight, and that's about as many people as we can let in on this."
Don's frown was back. "Hold on. I need to tell my team, and our father. And –"
"You want him safe, don't you?" Greene asked with that serious look on his face. "Then you'll make sure not to tell another soul, especially nobody working for the FBI."
Don wasn't sure if he'd heard right. "You can't be serious."
"I'm being most serious here. I already told you that we're dealing with a bunch of powerful people, people who have their spies everywhere, and we know for a fact that they also have people in their pocket who work for the FBI."
For a moment, Don was speechless. Someone from within the FBI was in on this, on an attempted assassination that would have almost killed his brother?
What on earth was this whole mess about?
Then, however, he'd collected his thoughts. "Even if there were people in the FBI involved, my team isn't. I need to tell them what's going on if we want to hunt down Brown." True, so far, he'd left them in the dark about everything that had happened after the shooting, but only because he'd felt the need to think this through, to make sure he didn't mess up anything. Now, however, he'd done his thinking, and he'd come to the conclusion that Charlie's being alive wasn't something he could possibly keep from his team. They needed to work together, so he couldn't just lie to them, especially not about something of such importance.
"And how sure are you that your team isn't involved?"
Don opened his mouth, but when he didn't find an answer immediately, Greene went on somewhat coolly, "More to the point, if six months ago I had put it to you that one of your agents was a spy for the Chinese, would you have believed it?"
Don swallowed, but fought to remain standing tall. "No, and rightly so. He wasn't a spy."
"That's not quite true, though, is it? Just because he ended up on the right side doesn't mean he was who you thought he was."
"What does Colby have to do with anything? How do you even know about that?"
"I've done my homework. Plus, I've been working pretty closely with Charlie these last couple of months. All I'm asking you is if you're really willing to take that risk, if you trust your team enough to put your brother's life on the line."
Don was silent, biting down his lip and thinking hard. He didn't like the wording of Greene's question, but he did trust his team, and he'd been trusting them with Charlie's life in the past. Why should there be something wrong with that now?
"And even if they are who you think they are," Greene went on, "do you really want to take the risk of anything getting released on the outside? Just think about it, one mindless comment in the elevator or the bullpen, and our cover will be blown. Once word gets out that Charlie's still alive, or might still be alive, we can no longer control who gets this information, and once it gets to the wrong people, all our safety measures will have been in vain."
Don swallowed, or tried to, but his mouth was so dry that there wasn't any saliva he could send down to fill that burning hole in his stomach. He didn't like this, not one bit. But he also realized, as wrong as it all sounded, that at heart, Greene was right.
The door connecting the morgue to the rest of the hospital opened then and the mortician appeared. "His father wants to see him," he informed the two agents with a disturbing amount of deference in his demeanor.
Don looked at Greene, feeling his own expression harden. He would not back down on this one. "I need to tell him the truth."
Greene did not look happy, but didn't immediately tell him off either, so Don took his chance to go on, "He won't be part of hunting down Brown, so he won't be in a position to blab about this to anyone, so there's really no reason to lie to him." Greene's jaw clenched, and Don knew he had won, but still, he added, "I'm gonna tell him anyway, and if you don't give me a good reason not to, I'm gonna let him see him now."
Eventually, Greene nodded his consent, still grudging. "He can't see us here. And he needs to understand –"
"He's not gonna tell a soul," Don cut him off and, despite everything, couldn't help but feel a hint of triumph.
Alan could feel Megan's arm in his back. He tried to concentrate on that feeling, on something, anything, that would keep the catastrophe away, just for a moment, just one more moment that he didn't have to think about that, about Charlie –
He felt his eyes well up with tears and wiped them off with a trembling hand. This couldn't be happening. It was just too cruel. Yet, how else could he explain everything that had happened during the past hour, ever since his world had stopped turning and the only thing there was was this burning hole of emptiness and pain?
The moment when his life had stopped making sense was still burnt into his mind. It had not been when Megan had rang his door bell, and it had not been when she had told him about the shooting. His world had been shaken then, there had been pain and fear, but there had still been hope as well, even though he'd realized that things were bad. Yet, Alan was an optimistic man, and life had usually treated him well. Despite all the dangers his sons were facing on a daily basis, they'd always come through them relatively unharmed.
Until now.
The thought that now, so suddenly, this lucky streak should have come to an end, seemed so unrealistic that Alan hadn't been able to fathom it, not even when his eyes had taken in the chagrin on Megan's face. So when they'd arrived at the hospital, when they'd asked about his sons, the answer had come as a shock that had shattered the fragile figment of hopeful thoughts that Alan had been fighting to keep up. The look on the woman's face had been sympathetic, yes, but there could have been all the kindness in the world in her eyes, that would never make up for the destruction that her words had caused.
I'm sorry, but your son is dead. They tried everything in their power to resuscitate him, but there was nothing we could do. I'm very sorry for your loss.
His loss.
It sounded wrong somehow, and he didn't understand. The act of losing something seemed to imply that he was merely missing something, maybe even something that could be found again. That, however, didn't fit at all what he was experiencing, for what he was experiencing was so much worse. Ever since he'd heard those words, it was as though he was suffocating, as though he was deep down under water, with no idea where the surface was, there was only water, everywhere, and it was burning in his lungs and exerting pressure on him, crushing him from all sides, and there was just no air. And yet, he knew that the metaphor was wrong, for he wasn't just lacking air, he was lacking light as well. It was as though he was surrounded by crushing darkness, as though he was lying in his own grave, deep down in the earth, cramped in and unable to get back out of this earthly tomb, while the water was filling his lungs, giving him the feeling of slowly drowning.
So no, he wasn't merely missing something. It was he himself who was lost, lost in a world where there was nothing to make him feel hope, where there was nothing but pain and fear and grief.
His thoughts had made new tears form at the corners of his eyes and again, he wiped them away, feeling his eyes starting to burn, and yet not really feeling it, feeling this trifling physical pain merely as though it was all in another world, in a world far away from the misery he was living in.
Then, suddenly, Don was standing there in front of him.
"Thanks, Megan, I'll take him to him," he said quietly and with a tone in his voice that seemed cold somehow and that made Alan's fear grow further. There was something not right about that tone, it was wrong, it was all wrong, but even though he knew it was wrong, Alan couldn't bring himself to try and make it right, didn't even want to think about what was wrong and what was right. All he knew, all he could think about, was the sudden terror that he'd felt at his son's words. He couldn't do this. He wasn't ready for this. He wasn't ready to be led into the cold room, he wasn't ready for the blanket to be lifted, he wasn't…
"If there's anything we can do, Don..." Alan heard Megan say, but the words didn't really reach him. All he could think about was that horrid image in front of his inner eye, his son's outline hidden under the green, sterile cloth.
"Thanks, but we'd just like to be alone tonight," Don said in an offhand manner that Alan felt again was wrong. Again, however, he didn't have the energy to put his son's words into perspective.
The warm hand in his back and Megan left and were exchanged for a less warm hand on his shoulder and Don leading him further down into the morgue, closer to their destination.
To Charlie.
Alan thought his knees would buckle. He couldn't do it. He just couldn't stand the thought of seeing his son on a slab, lifeless, never to wake up again, never to breathe again, never to laugh again. Had it only been this morning that he'd seen him last? The memory seemed so distant, yet at the same time so close that it seemed impossible that the Charlie who'd left the house with an easygoing "See you later!" was the same one lying in there somewhere, only the shell of his former self.
"Dad, listen to me," he heard Don say and was a little surprised by the urgent tone in his voice. He looked around, as though waking up from a dream, but realizing he was still living his nightmare. Megan was gone now, they had advanced to a small room that had to lead to the morgue, and Alan shuddered. He didn't want to hear Don's words. He didn't want to hear how bad it was, that he shouldn't go in there. He knew that he needed to do this, he needed it for closure.
He did, didn't he?
It would give him closure, wouldn't it? It would make him feel better?
"Dad," Don tried again to get his attention, and Alan turned his head, wondering since when the simple movement was requiring so much energy, "listen to me: it's okay. Charlie's okay. He's not dead."
Alan frowned. The phrases had been simple, technically very easy to understand. Yet, he did not understand.
"Charlie's okay," Don repeated, and the lines of worry on Alan's face deepened. At the same time, he chastised himself. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to him that Don wasn't willing to face the truth. He himself wasn't either.
"But Megan said..." he tried to argue, but couldn't finish the sentence. "And the nurse upstairs –"
"It's true that he was shot," Don admitted, showing a kind of clarity and sanity that made Alan's frown deepen. Maybe, just maybe –
"But he's not dead," Don went on before Alan had time to tell his hope to stop flourishing. "He's hurt, but he's relatively okay. You can see for yourself, he's right through that door."
Alan was looking at his son, feeling the need for more information, for clarification, but before he could stop himself, his feet were taking him to the double door Don had pointed out, and then, he was standing in the morgue, looking at a white-clothed medical man bending over his youngest, but there was no green cloth, no lifeless shell, there was only his son, alive and breathing.
When they'd entered, Charlie had turned his head, and now he stood, trying to straighten himself and immediately abandoning the attempt after grimacing with pain.
"Dad," he said and made a step towards him, and while there was an obvious strain in his voice, it was the voice of his son, a sound he'd thought to have lost forever. "I'm okay. Well, relatively."
It was as though that had been the password to unlock Alan's imprisoned inner self. The lid of his tomb was removed, the water disappeared, and there was air again, there was life again. A second later, he put his hands on his son's shoulders, feeling his eyes well up once again, yet not feeling the agony he'd felt before, only the bittersweet relief of a shattered heart molding back into one.
Despite the restraint he'd planned to put on himself, afraid to cause his son even more pain, he couldn't keep himself from encircling him with his arms, feeling his living body next to his own, the warm flesh under his old hands.
"I'm sorry, Dad, but we don't have a lot of time," Don's terse voice interrupted this moment of bliss. "We need to let Doctor Hansen finish his examination."
"As a matter of fact, I'm done with everything that can be done down here. Now all that's left is the X-ray to make sure we're not dealing with a hemothorax."
Still busy wiping the tell-tale moisture from his eyes, Alan watched his sons exchange a glance that he couldn't quite interpret. There was a kind of alarm in their expressions that he didn't understand.
"Is this really necessary?" Don asked the doctor, thereby increasing the confusion on Alan's mind.
He frowned, glancing back and forth between his sons. He was still fighting to catch up with the events that had turned over his life more than once tonight, but he was convinced that there was no reason why Charlie shouldn't get the treatment he needed. "It's an X-ray, Don, not surgery or anything. If the doctor says he should be X-rayed, he should be X-rayed." He noticed that his voice was still shaking badly, but at least there had been an air of authority in it. Good old father instincts.
"It's not that easy, Dad –"
"Why not? What on earth is going on here?"
His sons exchanged another glance before Don explained, "Someone wants Charlie dead, and he hired a hitman to kill him. And we're worried that once they learn he's still alive, they're gonna try again, so for the time being, we need to pretend that Charlie's dead. That also means we shouldn't risk him getting seen by any more people, so we shouldn't really move him around the hospital."
Alan was staring at Don, not sure whether he was getting this right. Before he had time to voice his doubts, though, Don turned towards the doctor. "You said you finished the examination so far, so what did you find?"
"Well," the doctor started, obviously not feeling at ease at all with this situation, "I'd say that several ribs are broken on his left side, I'd say four of them. So far, I haven't found any indication that inner organs have been damaged by them, but that's what we would need further examination for that can't be done down here."
Don was frowning. "Wouldn't it be pretty obvious if inner organs were damaged? I mean, he's moving and breathing and everything."
"That still leaves the possibility of smaller injuries. We'll only know for sure with an X-ray or a CT or MRI scan. Although 'sure' is not the right word, for an X-ray might miss smaller bleeding. We should be able to see those with a CT or an MRI, but we won't be able to use the latter two at least before morning."
"Then it's moot anyway," Charlie said, and while his voice was low and trembling, there was something conclusive in it, something that didn't make it seem possible to contradict. Yet, that was what Alan felt he needed to do, for he knew that their concern was justified. He'd been an FBI agent's father long enough to know a thing or two about bulletproof vests, and he knew that there was still substantial damage possible even with that sort of protection. Yet, he knew that Charlie was aware of all that, too, and he'd always been the more cautious one of his sons, the less reckless one. The fact that now, after having sustained considerable injuries, he wouldn't even be willing to get himself checked out more thoroughly… The realization made shudders run down Alan's spine, for only now did he understand how serious this was, how great a danger Charlie was still facing.
He flinched when there was a knock from a door at the other end of the room. It remained closed, though, and his sons' reactions showed that it was more of a signal than the heads-up for an entrance.
"I should go now," Charlie said in a whisper, but couldn't hide the fact that his voice was breaking.
"What?" Alan asked, for he didn't understand. He'd just gotten him back, from the realm of the dead, how could he leave again? And where?
"He'll be with people who can keep him safe," Don explained softly, accompanying the words with a firm hand in Alan's back that should probably have been reassuring. "People we can trust," he added in a strange tone, with a kind of tension that could also be found in his posture, and that only left when his words elicited a single serious nod from Charlie.
While Alan was still struggling to accept the situation, Don was stepping forward, carefully pulling his brother into an embrace, and it was as though that image was telling Alan everything he needed to know, and it was both crushing him and building him up. For it was sure now, things were bad, but it was also clear that none of them would stop fighting until they'd made it all right again.
"Take good care of yourself," he heard Don whisper. "And I expect some kind of report from you at least daily, got it?"
Charlie nodded, quickly, and smiled, but even in the poor state Alan found himself in, he could tell that it was only a show of confidence, without anything real underneath the fear that he could plainly see rooted deeply in his eyes.
But if showing confidence was what was needed to let his son go through with this, to keep Charlie safe, he'd play along.
"Be safe," he whispered as he held him close to him once again, forbidding himself to let his thoughts turn back to the dark side. And before he knew it, the moment was gone, and Don was urging him outside.
"We need to stay here and buy them another couple of minutes," Don said while Alan's mind was still reeling with the memories of the past hour. "You might wanna sit down."
Despite, but at bottom due to not wanting to appear weak, Alan did as he was told and tried to collect his thoughts, to get back on top of things.
"I still don't understand," he said, attempting to restore some order in his mind, "Megan told me… I mean, why would she lie? I can't –"
"Megan doesn't know."
Alan frowned. "How can she not know? I thought –"
"Nobody can know, okay?" Don exclaimed, no longer exuding the calm he'd shown while they'd been inside with Charlie. "I told you, we're dealing with very powerful people, and as soon as they learn Charlie's still alive, he's as good as dead."
The words were like a powerful stab into Alan's still healing heart, and yet, he refused to believe it. "I understand that, but… I mean, how can Megan not know? I thought… I mean, they're your team. These are people that you trust with your life everyday."
"Yes, with my life," Don specified. "But we're talking about Charlie's life here."
Alan stared at him, at his eldest's attempt to regain his composure. It took him a minute, but it worked. "Look," he said, and that calm tone of efficiency was back, "we just can't take any chances. We need to keep this to ourselves, just for a couple of days, until we've made sure that whoever is behind this can't hurt Charlie anymore. But before that… we can't tell anyone. That includes everyone who's close to Charlie – Amita, Larry, Millie, and my team. None of them can know what we know."
Alan shuddered, he couldn't help it. He hadn't realized it until now, he hadn't wanted to see it, but Don's plain words made one thing too clear to be overlooked any longer: after everything that had happened today, after everything they'd gone through, there was still a chance that Alan might lose his son all over again.
Ian was surprised to see light, and even more surprised to see Don's three team members sitting at their desks. He'd thought to be here early, but apparently, they had beaten him to it.
"You guys get up in the middle of the night on this side of the continent?" he asked as a greeting, trying to lighten the thick mood and failing utterly.
"I woke up early," was Colby's mumbled reply, which was still better than David's quick and wordless glance. Megan didn't even turn around.
Ian swallowed dryly. He'd been afraid this would happen, and even worse, he still hadn't found a way how to deal with this. "Did you find anything on Brown?" he asked eventually, knowing that his question was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he thought it might be good for them all to return to some sort of professional routine. On the other…
"That's really all you care about, isn't it," Megan said as she finally turned around to face him. Despite his best intentions, Ian shrank back a little. There was a kind of hatred both in her voice and in her eyes that he hadn't known before, and it was exactly the kind of hatred he'd been apprehensive about. "Charlie hasn't even been dead 24 hours, but you don't care about that, you only care about your manhunt, and you're barging in here as though we should just go about business as usual."
Ian was silent for a moment. Her words were hitting him hard, and it was taking him some effort not to let that show. "Don't you want to catch the man who killed him?"
"And why did he kill him?" Megan asked, her tone belligerent. "Did you ever stop to think about that?"
Ian didn't reply. He had thought about that. In fact, he'd been thinking about little else for the greater part of the night. As much as he hated admitting it to himself, Megan was right. It had been him who had brought Charlie in on this case, it had been Ian who had brought him in Brown's firing line, literally. It might have been Brown who'd pulled the trigger, but the cold truth was that Ian was equally responsible for his friend's death.
However, that was all the more reason not to let this go unavenged.
Before he could figure out though how to get back on the team's good side to do what needed to be done, they could hear a ding coming from the elevators. They instinctively turned around, but had to take a double look before they had to decide to trust their eyes.
"Don," David greeted the newcomer, the shock clearly audible in his voice. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," came Don's reply. It was soft, he was almost whispering, and Ian noticed that he wasn't looking them in the eye. "It's early. But since you're here, any word on Brown?"
They glanced at each other, and Ian could feel their insecurity, could feel it himself. Something wasn't right about Don's behavior, it was wrong. There was an air of calmness and quietude about him, almost a depressive side, but at the same time, there was a kind of nervousness about him, something that was keeping him on edge and that didn't seem healthy. The depression Ian could understand, for he did sympathize with the feeling of loss in general, and he'd also had first-hand experience with the tight bond that had connected these very different brothers. The nervousness, however, was something he had more trouble accepting, for it was worrisome, and not just for Don's sake. It was obvious that he was putting on a show, that he was trying to suppress his feelings, and while Ian was usually a great supporter of that kind of behavior, he didn't like to see it out in the field, not when you were part of a team, when you had other people depending on you.
So ordinarily, Ian would have weighed in with his opinion, he would have told Don to back off and stay away from this case until they would have brought Brown into custody. Given the particularities of this situation however, he couldn't very well do that, could he? Granted, until now, Don hadn't made any allusion, but he too had to be aware of the ugly truth: if Ian hadn't dragged Charlie into this, he would still be alive. Even worse, Ian should probably have realized that Brown had somehow found out that someone was onto him, that he was being chased, even though Ian had still no idea how he could have found out about that, or about Charlie's involvement. Still, the facts couldn't be dismissed, and given that even Don's team members were acting with reserve towards him, how much more reason did Don have to hate him? So how could Ian criticize anything about Don's behavior? Even so, it was a small miracle that Don wasn't at Ian's throat already merely for being in his line of sight.
"He hasn't returned to his motel room," Colby replied, making Ian re-focus on the conversation. There was something professional about Colby's tone, but there was a fire in his eyes that showed that it wasn't just his sense of duty that was driving him. "He must have figured out we found his hideout, maybe he saw us staking out the place. We have a state-wide APB issued for him, but no hits so far."
"We should work under the assumption that he's still in the city," Ian put in despite himself. "He came here to do a job, and he'll do what he can to finish it."
"But he knows we're onto him," David objected. "He wouldn't run the risk of getting caught, would he?"
"You're forgetting that he's a hunter, he enjoys the chase, on either side. Anyway, knowing we were onto him hasn't made him flee the city before, on the contrary, he decided to counter-attack." A little too late, Ian stopped himself. The reminder hadn't really been necessary, for none of them.
It was Don who spoke next, still with that strange tone of forced calmness, still without meeting their eyes. "We should also allow for the possibility that Charlie was Brown's original target all along."
Ian frowned. True, he wasn't a math genius, but he could tell that Don's idea seemed somehow unlikely. On the other hand, the theory explained why Don hadn't bitten off Ian's head yet, so Ian was a little reluctant to burst the bubble.
Still, Don must have felt their disbelief. "We all know Charlie's been working on all kinds of projects," he justified his theory. "He might very well have been working on something that got him on Brown's list, so we should assume that Brown considers his work here to be done."
"But –" David tried to interject, but was cut off.
"Did you find any clues in his room that point to any other victim in L.A.?" Don asked him with some impatience.
"No, but we assume that he took everything he needed with him."
Don made no comment to that, but remained firm, and that was exactly why Ian was opposed to him working this case. He just couldn't see clearly, he wasn't being objective, and who could blame him for that?
"All I'm saying is that we have to keep an open mind about this," Don decided. "We shouldn't focus on merely L.A., but take the search nationwide, if not statewide."
When Ian glanced at Don's team members, he could see that they didn't agree with their boss either, but none of them was saying that. And it hit Ian: it wasn't just Don who was far too close to this, they all were. They were all one big, grieving family. And then, only a moment later, Ian realized that he was part of them, too, that despite his self-concept of the independent lone wolf, he'd found a family here.
And he'd just gotten his brother killed.
"You're up early," Nate remarked in a tone that was so chipper that Charlie felt his own mood deteriorate inversely proportionally to experiencing the agent's high spirits.
"I couldn't sleep," he mumbled and tried to concentrate on sorting through the new data his program had provided him with. It wasn't working very well, and there was a good chance that it was because his head felt like someone was relentlessly hitting it with a giant hammer made of rubber. Oh, and right, someone was doing the same thing to his ribs, just that they'd decided to add spikes to that hammer.
"Your ribs that bad?" Philip asked sympathetically as he emerged from his bedroom. "Are your pain meds not working?"
Charlie grimaced. True, Philip's tone didn't hold the same irritating cheerfulness as Nate's, but his questions were still annoying, especially when Charlie thought about how much better his life might be with a little less pain. At the same time, he was exasperated and annoyed with himself for being in such a bad mood when he knew very well that this wasn't a picnic for Nate and Philip either. It was hardly their fault they were in this situation, and they too would surely have liked to be somewhere else, or to find themselves with someone who wasn't acting like the cranky Hypochondriac. "I can't take them," he grumbled, but tried to take the edge out of his voice. "They're fogging my thoughts."
"But if you're in pain –" Nate started, frowning.
"I don't really have a choice here, do I?" Charlie cut him short. "The longer I take to finish this, the longer we'll be cooped-up in this place, and the greater the risk of the wrong people finding out about that." He felt a shudder run down his spine. He did not want people to find out. His latest encounter with his assassin had been an experience he did definitely not need a repetition of.
"About that," Philip said towards Nate, "we might wanna check on our suspects, see if they're taking any interest in the notice of Charlie's death."
"Way ahead of you," Nate told him. "Clara's about to give me an update within the hour."
Charlie couldn't help it, he felt another shudder go through his body, and he willed them to stop, for even the small movements were sending painful stabs through his rib-cage. Yet, slowly but surely the realization was dawning on him: he was truly officially dead. Everyone who hadn't been included to the small circle of trust, that was everyone who wasn't close to him or working on this case, believed him to be dead, and he didn't quite know what to think about that. When he'd initially heard the plan, he'd thought that despite the disadvantages, it had at least the advantage to ensure his safety. But somehow, playing dead wasn't making him feel safe at all, it almost felt as though he was actually dead already, living a mere shadow of a life for an indeterminate amount of time.
He felt his breathing accelerate and he put his still hurting head in his hands, trying to calm himself down, for breathing heavily was hurting, too. However, he still couldn't shake the thought that staging his death had only brought the magnitude of this operation to his mind while doing nothing to offer a solution to the problem. For it wasn't really a solution, was it? Brown was still out there, people still wanted him dead and would make sure to achieve their goal if they ever found out they hadn't achieved it yet.
"What's wrong?"
Charlie flinched and immediately winced when the sudden movement gave him another stab in his chest. He glanced up at Nate, who was looking at him a little worriedly. "Nothing," he said, but could still feel their eyes on him, so he added, "It's just that… I'm not really enjoying playing dead, you know? And it's… I feel that it's kind of wrong. I mean, there are a lot of people out there who know me and who would deserve to know the truth, too. My students for instance, have you ever paused to think about what this might do to them? They're really young and impressionable, and one of their professors getting murdered on campus must be quite upsetting for them."
He saw Nate and Philip exchange a meaningful glance. He just didn't know what it meant.
"Yeah," Nate said in a strange tone. "I guess it might be upsetting for them. You know we have to do this, though."
"Of course I do," Charlie mumbled, then added under his breath, "Still doesn't mean I have to like it."
Day two of this stupid game of hide-and-seek had begun, and Don was hating it more and more. He'd survived the past day in the office by sealing himself off from his team members, which had actually been a little easier due to their different theories as to Brown's goal. While Don was focusing on trying to figure out on which way Brown might have left the city and where he might be headed next, the rest of his team was still trying to find him somewhere in L.A. Granted, it was possible that his next victim could be found here as well, but it was so unlikely that Don would have preferred to interchange the focus of their efforts. It would have made more sense for four people to work on the leads outside of L.A. and one person to cover this rather thin lead of Brown having stayed in the city. However, in order to convince his team, he would have had to tell them the truth, and that was something that he just couldn't do.
At least it seemed to be worth it somehow. As Charlie had assured him both last night and the night before that, he was more or less okay. That had been pretty much everything he could tell Don, but it was enough to put Don's mind sufficiently at ease to let him go to sleep at night and function at his job during the day.
Now, however, no matter how much Don wanted his brother to be safe, he was seriously doubting whether all this was truly worth it after all. The moment his resolve had been challenged had been earlier this morning, when Amita and Larry had shown up at the office, practically begging them to assist on this case. And Don was glad that they had offered their help, for he was well aware that Charlie's algorithm had worked once before, and that his friends would be able to adapt it to fit the new situation. However, their help came at a personal cost that Don didn't know how to handle.
He could deal with the quiet, with their somber taciturnity. Watching Larry's erratic agitation however, his inability to focus on the hard science, was a challenge. And yet, it was nothing compared to seeing Amita's distress. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, and even if she had tried to hide that fact with makeup, it wouldn't have done much good, for the crying set in again at semi-regular intervals about every half hour.
The ringing of Don's phone pulled him back to the present time and let his qualms rest for a moment, and when he glanced at the display, any other thought was forgotten, he felt electrified. The number that was calling him was blocked, so chances were that it was Charlie. However, as eager as Don was to hear some news from his brother, it couldn't elude him that until now, Charlie had always called him late at night, when he could be reasonably certain that Don was home alone, so this was out of the ordinary, and in their current situation, breaking the routine was likely cause for alarm.
"Hey, Dad, is that you?" Don asked while he rose from his chair.
"It's me," he heard Charlie's voice, and there was a kind of tension in it that he didn't like.
"Yeah, sure, Dad, just give me a sec." With an apologetic gesture to his team, he left the room to find a quiet place to talk privately.
As soon as he was sure not to be overheard, his tone changed, and he allowed himself to stop hiding his agitation. "What's wrong?"
"That's a good question," Charlie's voice came back. "Why are you calling me 'Dad'?"
"Why do you think? I'm at the office, I don't really want to broadcast who I'm talking to. Now why are you calling? What happened?"
"We may have stumbled upon a lead on Brown," Charlie said, and Don felt himself flooded with relief. That actually sounded like good news instead of bad.
"How so? I thought you were busy with… well, whatever it is you're doing," he ended with a slightly bitter note.
"We found his client. We know that he, or a middleman, met with Brown yesterday evening in a parking garage near downtown, at the intersection of Fernwood Avenue and Cortland Street."
"How do you know that? And who is this client? Is he in custody yet?"
"Look, I can't tell you any more than what I've already told you. We just thought that it might help you in your search for Brown."
Don could feel his anger flare up, but he forced himself to make sure he couldn't be overheard before he hissed into his phone, "We can't keep going on like this. You can't withhold crucial information from me and just expect me to do whatever you tell me to do!"
"You think I want you to keep working on this?" Charlie exclaimed and was apparently just as upset as Don. "I told you before, these are dangerous people, and if I had thought to have any chance of success, I would have asked you long ago to just leave this case be. But I can't, because you've been assigned this case about Brown, but what I can do is keep you away from his clients, so that's what we're going to do."
Charlie's breathing was sounding more laborious, and it took him a couple of seconds before he continued. When he did, a slight tremble had entered his voice, but other than that, it was almost eerily firm. "I need you to promise me that you won't try to figure out anything about Brown's clients, or do any digging as to what this case is about. You need to leave this to us."
Don frowned. Since when was Charlie the one telling him to leave things alone, telling him how to do his job? Don was the boss here, Charlie was just a consultant. On the other hand, there had been a seriousness in his words that couldn't just be dismissed.
"Please, Don," Charlie resorted to begging. "This whole thing has gotten bad enough, if now on top of everything else you get caught in the crossfire… Just please, promise me you won't do anything reckless."
Don paused. As much as he hated hearing the fear in Charlie's voice, he couldn't promise him that, for he knew, if things went south, if he had reason to believe that taking a risk might save his brother's life, he wouldn't hesitate to do that.
He could, however, promise him to not knowingly increase the risk. "Alright. I promise you I won't try to figure out whatever case this is you're working on, not for now at least."
"Thank you," Charlie replied quietly before he cleared his throat and tried to get back on track. "Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about the parking garage, we thought it might help you with the search. I've been thinking, maybe you should ask Amita and Larry to help you, they could –"
"They're already here helping us," Don interrupted him before, a second too late, he realized his mistake.
"They are? Why didn't you say so? Just let me talk to them, together we should be able to adapt the algorithm I wrote for you in no time."
"They already did that," Don said and was suddenly eager to finish this phone call, before Charlie would ask too many questions about why he could only talk to Don and no-one else. "Don't worry, buddy, they've got it all covered, I'll just let them know about Brown's whereabouts last night, and then I'm sure they can take it from there." Even though, Don thought with an inward sigh, he'd have to make up an anonymous tipster for that, another lie.
"Of course they can, but we –" Charlie began, but before he could go on, Don decided to break this off.
"Listen, I gotta go now, unless there's anything else?"
There was a brief pause. "No, nothing."
Suddenly, Don's throat felt a little tight. He was reluctant to end this call, but he also knew he had to keep Charlie from figuring out that they were withholding his being alive from everyone else, otherwise Charlie might very well be led to rash actions that could, worst case, lead to his exposure.
"Listen, let's talk later. Just sit tight, okay?"
"Yeah," came Charlie's soft answer, before he surprised Don by adding, "Just be careful, okay?"
Don didn't even have time to think of a response before his brother had hung up.
"How is he?"
Don spun around. Amita was standing at his cubicle, quiet and still, and all of a sudden Don realized that for at least half a minute, he hadn't been paying attention as to who had been in earshot. Even worse, he couldn't quite remember what exactly he'd said. Did Amita realize that he'd just been talking to Charlie? Could she be suspecting something?
"Well… it's a tough situation, for all of us," he replied vaguely, unwilling to directly lie to her. He'd been doing enough of that lately.
She shook her head, and with a stab at his heart, Don watched her face start twitching as she was trying to suppress the tears. "I can't imagine what this must be like for him," she said, and her voice too had become unsteady. "I stopped by yesterday to pay him a visit, but… I don't know, it seemed as though I was just making everything worse, like I was imposing on him."
Don hesitated for a moment, unsure how to phrase his answer. He knew that while his dad had realized the necessity of keeping what they knew to themselves, he was very much opposed to lying. True, he wouldn't deliberately jeopardize their plans, but he wasn't willing to adopt any pertinent role in this scheme either, so he'd chosen a compromise by sealing himself off from the rest of the world and minimize his social contacts to what was absolutely necessary. Luckily, most people were letting him grieve on his own, but Don was aware that the situation was different with Amita. She was part of this family, so sealing himself off from her and letting her grieve on her own was so wrong that she couldn't help but notice. On the other hand, Don understood very well the need to distance oneself especially from her, because lying to her about Charlie's death and causing her the pain everyone could see so clearly on her face seemed even worse than lying to the team.
"He just needs some time alone," Don said softly.
She nodded, quickly, and Don winced when he saw her eyes well up again. "I understand. It's just..."
She was succumbed by the tears that made it impossible for her to go on, and finally, Don stepped forward, taking her in his arms. He knew it wasn't much comfort he could give her, but it was at least something, something to not leave her hanging all alone.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed and freed herself from his embrace, "I'm… This must be so hard for you, too, and still you manage to keep it together. I'm sorry, I should just get a grip on myself."
The stab that Don had felt earlier was there again, worse, someone was twisting the knife in his heart, poking around the damaged organ as though they were looking for something. Maybe his conscience.
"It's okay," he tried soothing her, but could feel that it wasn't enough, "don't be so hard on yourself. Everyone deals with this differently."
She nodded, again too quickly. "Right," she said and wiped the tears out of her eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean… I… I'll be back with you in a minute," she finally stopped rambling and headed for the restrooms.
Don sighed heavily, feeling his raddled heart flutter as he watched her leave, and he knew: he needed to tell her. This was just too cruel to her, he couldn't let her grieve like this any longer.
At the same time, his mind was coming up with the possible consequences of his actions. If he told her, she would become a member of their small circle of trust, and the greater the circle grew, the more difficult did it become for it to hold together, to not burst and let out the secret they were all trying to protect. If he told her, she'd be in the same position as Don was now, in a position of having to lie to their friends. And if she didn't manage to do that, if she told Larry, he would probably tell Megan, and thus the news would have spread into the FBI and might spread further, at least as rumors, by a mindless glance or comment or note. Besides, if he told her, and if from one minute to the next, she would stop her grieving – wouldn't that raise suspicion? Yet how could she continue to convincingly play the part of the grieving widow if she knew the truth?
Don bit his lip. He didn't like this, he didn't like it at all, and it felt as though this was the most difficult thing he'd ever had to do, because it felt as though he was misusing everyone around him to act in a play they didn't know they were part of, all to keep Charlie safe. And yet, he knew that he had to do it, for if he didn't, and if then something happened to Charlie… He shook his head, his conviction strengthening again. He just couldn't take the risk. As wrong as going through with his plan and going against his intuition felt, he knew that the underlying logic was irrefutable. Mourning a fake body was still better than mourning a real one, for all of them.
Charlie was staring at the screen, not sure whether he was getting this right.
"I've got it," he said, noticing that his words were sounding a little hollow, as though he didn't believe them himself. And he didn't.
Neither did Nate. "You sure?" he asked and came up behind him, staring at the screen, before he gave up the attempt to study Charlie's face instead of his results, something he understood much better.
Charlie nodded, slowly. He was sure, kind of. There was little room for doubt, and yet, he hadn't been on the top of his game for a while now. He was still in pain, still had the headache, had trouble breathing and was feeling rather miserable in general. So yeah, technically it was possible that he'd made a mistake. He couldn't find it though, all he could see were the clear hard facts that only allowed one interpretation.
"That's the list," he said and pulled up the document. "If all the data we gathered is sound, these are the ones, and the only ones, whose data show inconsistencies."
He walked the two agents through his process once again, and in the end, they too had to accept that they seemed to have finished this assignment. After months of gathering data and crunching numbers, this giant and yet so secret case, one that had been asking so much of them in every regard, had finally come to an end.
"I need to call Don," Charlie said and fervently hoped that the agents wouldn't have anything to object to that. "He needs to know that this is over now."
Nate raised an eye-brow. "You know that it isn't. We still need to find Brown. Even after we've arrested everyone on your list, you're still a material witness in this case, so we should assume that this Brown fellow will still want to finish the job he'd been hired to do. From what we've learned so far, he seems to be one who tends to honor his contracts, never mind whether or not his clients are in jail."
Charlie swallowed, but fought not to lose his spirits. They'd made one giant leap forward, now all that remained to finally complete this stupid case was finding Brown, and that shouldn't be too hard, right?
"That's exactly why I should call him," he insisted, trying to shut down the cautious feeling of reservation in his gut that told him that finding Brown might not be as easy as he liked to think. "Now that we're done here, I could work from here to help them find Brown, maybe we can split the workload for the analysis."
He saw Nate and Philip exchange a glance before Nate voiced their doubts. "You sure you don't wanna take a break? You're not exactly looking a picture of health, you know, and you've been working on this pretty much non-stop ever since we've come here, and that was three days ago – or anyway, two and a half. Besides, going after Brown is a pretty certain way to get back into his firing line."
"And what would that change exactly?" Charlie exclaimed, unable to remain calm. He'd been a prisoner in this house for days now, he hadn't even been allowed to go anywhere near the windows, which had all been tolerable while he'd still been busy with finishing their project. Now, however, he either needed something else to keep his mind occupied and stop him from going crazy, or he needed to get out of here as soon as possible, so the best option was collaborating with Don and the team to try and locate Brown.
"Fine, then call him," Nate agreed with a shrug that conveyed that in his mind, a collaboration didn't really make much of a difference anyway, which wasn't exactly the answer Charlie had been hoping for. "Just make sure not to give him any specifics about our case, especially not before we've made the arrests."
"Of course not," Charlie accepted with a small sigh, feeling a little exhausted. He was growing tired of being patronized, of always treading carefully and withholding important information from everyone. He took another fairly deep breath to emit another sigh, just enough to not expand his rib-cage too much, and then supported his head with his pleasantly cool hands while dialing Don's number, preparing to have another argument about keeping secrets from him.
Don felt as though he'd fallen down one of those strange time-traps known from movies. A déjà vu in its most literal sense, one that was made doubly uncomfortable by the change in the atmosphere, by the grim layer of grief tinging his team's actions. This time, they'd decided to check out the different places one by one together, since in each area that Amita and Larry had pointed out, there were numerous rooms or apartments to be checked. Now that they had learned from the NSA (aka the 'anonymous tipster') that Brown had stayed within the city, they'd re-united their efforts, while Don had left it to the NSA agents to pursue any leads outside of L.A., just to be on the safe side.
Nobody answered to their knock, so Don opened the door and, along with Ian and Megan, stepped inside. This time, they had gotten the key for the motel rooms in question and had made their way through numbers one to three, with David and Colby checking out the other half on their list. This was the last room in this building that came into question, but they still had a couple of buildings to check out, all places where according to Amita and Larry, Brown might be hiding out.
They hadn't been in the room for more than a minute when Don realized that this was it. This time, Brown had hidden his utensils a little better, but they soon found much that was similar to what they'd stumbled upon in his last motel room: maps, ammunition, hunting gear. Brown had evidently replaced his equipment, anyway: what they found was enough to make them feel certain that they'd reached a successful end in their search for his hideout.
"Colby, get over here, room 121, David, go outside as a look-out and call for back-up to stake out this place," Don radioed his two team-members while they were continuing their search of the place.
"The ammo fits," Ian informed them while Megan was searching the bedroom and Don was inspecting the kitchenette.
At first glance, there was nothing to suggest anything suspicious here, but when Don opened the cupboards, he frowned. Instead of groceries, they were filled with tools that did definitely not belong in a kitchen, even though Don couldn't decide what it was that Brown had been making here. Then, under the sink, he found what he figured had to be a clue for Brown's project, just that he couldn't decipher it, and for a moment, he wished he would have paid more attention in chemistry class. It was a large canister labeled "HCl", and Don rummaged his brain. Maybe hydro-something?
"Pictures," he heard Megan call from the bedroom before he'd found an answer. With the help of Colby, who in the meanwhile had joined them, she was busy spreading them out on the bed when he entered the room, but stopped abruptly, apparently mesmerized by one picture in particular.
Colby, too, was frowning hard as he was looking at it over her shoulder. "Isn't that George Barlowe?" he asked with new alarm in his voice.
"I thought so, too," Megan tensely agreed with him before she explained towards Ian, who couldn't be expected to know a local politician, "He's running for Senate." She pulled out her cell-phone and stood. "I'm calling our technicians, they need to figure out where he is and find his contact information so we can warn him."
"There's also a map in here," Colby said and pulled it out of the drawer while Megan exited the room to have some quiet for her call. "It might help us figure out where Brown intends to ambush him. There! He wrote down a number on it, 146. Does this mean anything to you?" he asked Ian.
"Can't say that it does," Ian replied, frowning, and inspected the map. "It's in Riverside, seems to be a residential area. Maybe it's a house number, might be Barlowe's home address. Even if it isn't, we could still check out all the numbers 146 in the area if we don't find this Barlowe guy and Brown through some other means first."
"Looks like finding Barlowe won't be a problem," Megan said as she strode back into the room. "He was arrested only a couple of hours ago."
"What?" Colby asked, and Don too was looking at his colleague with confusion. George Barlowe, the well-respected businessman and politician, had not only become the next target of a notorious hitman, he'd also been arrested? This whole affair was getting stranger by the minute.
"He's believed to have committed election fraud," Megan forwarded the information she'd just received from their technicians. "And not just him. There's been a coordinated arrest of more than a dozen politicians nation-wide, all believed to have tampered with the polls, and high-ranking ones, too. Apparently, it's all over the news, they're calling it the biggest political scandal of the century."
Don frowned. Even though he wasn't a fan of such superlatives, especially given that the century wasn't even a decade old, he had to admit that if what Megan was telling them was true, this was huge. Still, he couldn't see how everything fitted together yet.
"What the hell is going on here?" Colby asked the question of questions. "Barlowe just happens to be arrested just when he's about to get killed by a wanted assassin?"
"Well, all I can tell you is that Barlowe is safe for now, they've moved him to a detention cell and I've given word not to move him anywhere else until we've figured this out, so that's what we should do now, and I think we'd better start in this motel room."
Nobody objected, and Don had just resumed his inspection of Brown's chemistry project in the kitchenette when Ian's voice called him back.
"I'm not sure it's something, it just seems a little odd to me, and maybe it'll give us some clues as to where else Brown has spent the last couple of days. Have you guys seen this?" Ian asked and drew their attention back to the pictures spread out on the bed, pointing out one picture in particular. "I'd say it's Charlie, isn't it? Brown must have taken it with him when… three days ago," he quickly gave his sentence another ending. "I just think it's strange that I can't pin it down at all, I can't tell who he's with, or where he's at, can you?"
Just like Megan and Colby, Don leaned over the picture, but had to take a double look. He still couldn't believe his eyes though, so he grabbed it and looked harder still, but only found that his initial guess had been correct. It was indeed Charlie, he was getting out of a car in front of a house that Don had never seen before, but what he definitely had seen before were the two men accompanying his brother, helping him out of the car: Nate Greene and Philip Brinkley, the two NSA agents that were supposed to keep him out of harm's way, away from Brown.
Don felt his mouth become dry while his mind was putting all the pieces together and realization was hitting him like a wall of cool air on a hot day, giving him clarity – and with it, a sudden premonition of danger.
"We need to go," he said, feeling suddenly weak and driven at the same time. "I'll explain in the car," he added when his team wasn't moving, and it worked, for within seconds, they were hustling down the stairs behind him.
When they passed David and the two plainclothes officers who'd just arrived, he told them to guard this place in case Brown came back, before he ran on towards his SUV. Granted, he still couldn't be sure that he was right about this, but he knew that if he was right, there wasn't a second to lose.
Colby, Ian and Megan hadn't closed the doors yet when Don was starting the engine and driving off. "You need to call Larry or Amita," he told Megan on the passenger seat. "Send them a picture of that photograph of Charlie, they need to figure out the exact address. It has to be a number 146 somewhere in that residential area in Riverside. Maybe they'll find it on Google Street View, otherwise they'll have to somehow get access to satellite imagery."
"I don't understand," Megan said, but was simultaneously following his orders. "What's going on, Don? And why don't we just ask our technicians about that house, this is much more up their alley."
"Just call them first, okay? I have my reasons, I'm gonna tell you in a minute." And he did have his reasons, for he knew this investigation needed to stay private somehow, that he had to make sure not to alert the wrong people and direct their attention to what Don suspected to be Charlie's hiding-place.
While Megan was talking to Amita, Don was trying to bring order to his thoughts and figure out what to say. He still wasn't sure whether he wasn't merely overreacting, but he was sure that he just had to check this out, and if they were to check this out, there was no way he could leave his team in the dark any longer.
"Now what's going on?" Megan asked with some sternness as soon as she had ended her call.
Don took a deep breath and let his hand go up to his collar to unbutton his shirt before he realized the top two buttons were already open. Still, there was an uncomfortable tightness around his neck, and he could feel an unpleasant heat rising to his head, a sensation of panic, adding to the apprehension he was already experiencing about his brother.
"I'm afraid that Brown might be going after Charlie," he said in a low voice, staring at the road ahead, and not just because he realized he had to concentrate on his driving.
"What did you just say?" Colby asked from the back-seat and leaned forward, apparently assuming he'd simply misheard. At the same time, Don could feel Megan's stare from the side, and he could sense that she understood that what was wrong here had nothing to do with their ears.
"Charlie's still alive," Don explained in a voice that was slightly trembling. "He's been staying in a safe house with two people from the NSA, and I'm afraid Brown may have found him and is about to attack."
There was silence, and despite the noises from the traffic and the engine, the silence felt so thick and deep that it seemed to drown everything around them.
"Hold on," Colby said after a moment that seemed like ages, "I don't get it. He was shot, Megan saw it happen, and at the hospital they said he was dead, we heard them, we were there."
"He'd been wearing a vest," Don explained, running a hand over his hot face and wishing for this conversation to just be over.
"Are you saying you and Charlie planned all this?" Colby asked, and apart from the incredulity, there was a kind of consternation in his voice that it hurt Don to hear. "You staged his death and didn't bother telling us any of this?!"
"No! I mean, not like that!" Don exclaimed and had to take a couple of deep breaths before he was able to go on. "Look, I messed up, okay, I get it, but you've got to believe me that none of this was planned. I didn't even know about the vest, but when I did, I realized that this was the perfect opportunity, that we had to make sure that Brown didn't learn that Charlie was still alive. And then these two NSA guys come up to me, telling me there are black sheep within the FBI forwarding information… I mean, what was I supposed to do? All I was trying to do was keep Charlie safe, and you can hate me all you want for that, but whatever I did wasn't Charlie's fault, so if you care about him at all, you just need to trust me on this and make sure Brown doesn't get to him after all."
The thick silence was back, making Don's tension grow to an unbearable level, making his hackles raise with a kind of electric jolt that made him feel as though he might ignite something.
"Why do you think he's in danger?" Ian finally ended the silence, and Don was relieved to give his nervous energy an outlet, and at the same time get a second opinion on whether or not he was being paranoid.
"The picture of Charlie you found," he started laying out his theory. "I can't be entirely sure, but from what he's wearing and from the way they're acting… I think it was taken the night of the shooting. I think Brown has been watching the hospital and seen them leave with Charlie, or maybe someone tipped him off, I don't know. In any case, I think he followed them to the safe house, and that's where he took the picture, maybe for his client. I guess he couldn't get a clear shot at Charlie and wanted to check with his client first, and I'm almost certain that it was Barlowe, or someone working for him. None of the pictures of Barlowe we found had any red circles around him, even though we know that's the way Brown marks his targets. I'm thinking he was stalking Barlowe because he may have wanted to learn about his client, too, maybe just to make sure the job was still worth his while, or he found the need for some proof for insurance, maybe even blackmail."
"But why would George Barlowe want to put a prize on Charlie's head?"
"Charlie called me this morning to tell me he had finished his case, a, quote, big case with powerful people involved, and mere hours later, a dozen politicians are being arrested. I think it's a given that the NSA has been involved in this, and I could swear that the analyzing part was Charlie's doing."
"But if you're right," Colby said slowly when Don's words had settled in, "then Brown has known for three days where Charlie is. Why wouldn't he have killed him already if that was still his plan?"
"Because it's still a safe house, and Charlie's being watched by two agents. I guess Brown just didn't have an opportunity yet. Remember Hamilton O'Sullivan? Brown had been waiting for three weeks before taking another shot at him, we know he's patient." He felt his throat become even dryer. Only now did the ramifications hit him: Brown had known all along, so his betrayal of his team had not only been cruel, it had also been pointless. At the same time, he couldn't stop the trembling of his hands. If Brown had known all along, they'd been sitting on a ticking bomb this entire time, and only God knew if there was still time to defuse it.
"But I think he may not be patient this time," he went on in a croaky voice. "Barlowe knew that the NSA was getting close, and if they knew that Charlie was still alive and might continue working on that case, he surely wanted the job done rather sooner than later, so I'm thinking… I'm thinking they may have been planning something else. Brown was building something in his kitchen, and I guess it was some kind of chemical weapon, but there were only tools left behind and bottles of chemicals with parts of them missing, so… I don't know, I'm afraid he might be planning to strike as we speak."
There was the silence again, but this time, it didn't just make him feel miserable, it made him feel panicky. He'd hoped to be wrong about this, he'd hoped that there was some error in his logic, that there was another explanation for everything. The fact that none of his team was pointing the error out to him didn't bode well, for it had to mean that he was right.
He heard Colby behind him take a deep breath, and he almost felt hope, but his words only made his apprehension grow, "Let's just hope we're not too late."
Charlie was fighting to keep his eyes open as his lids were drifting shut in intervals that were becoming shorter and shorter. His head felt heavy, too, and he was supporting it with his hand. It also felt uncomfortably hot, and even though he'd been trying to keep the reasoning unfinished, he was pretty sure that his conclusion was sound and that he was running a fever. Chances were that he had caught some kind of infection, and the fact that the pain he experienced while breathing had worsened over the past few days instead of getting better wasn't making him feel at ease about his health either. It was no longer merely a throbbing pain, there had been an inflammatory sensation added to it that made Charlie think twice before taking another breath – before each and every breath.
To tell the truth, he was thinking about hitting the hay. It had been a long, eventful day, considering they hadn't even set a foot outside, and it was probably wiser to rest for the night and be fresh tomorrow. On the other hand, it wasn't even half past eight yet, so despite his exhaustion, Charlie was reluctant to go to sleep so early. And yet, if he went to bed, that meant that he wouldn't be trying to work for several hours consecutively, and that in turn meant that he could allow himself to take a pain killer. That alone seemed reason enough to turn in for the night.
Before he had decided what to do though, a sudden noise pulled him out of his drowsy state and he sat upright, wincing with the pain that the sudden movement had brought about. The next moment, he had identified the source of the noise and jumped up from his chair, stumbling backwards. It only took him a moment to realize what was happening, but that moment was enough to make him lose his orientation, for that moment had been enough to fill the room with thick, heavy smoke.
It had to be a smoke bomb. It had been thrown through the closed window, or probably shot through the window, given that it had landed in the middle of the room, and had immediately started to emit some kind of gas. As soon as Charlie realized that, he wanted to get away, but it was already too late. The fumes had gotten into his airways and were irritating his bronchi even more than the bacteria had done before. He was coughing, and with the coughing came the pain, an excruciating, relentless stabbing in his damaged rib-cage that made him double over and sink on his knees. At the same time, the smoke was getting into his eyes, irritating them as well. He could feel them tear up and tried to wipe them clean to be able to see again, but there was nothing to be seen, there was smoke everywhere, and he couldn't even stand upright because he couldn't stop coughing –
"Charlie? What's going on?"
Philip's voice sounded distant, he had to be downstairs, but only few seconds later, Charlie could hear footsteps ascending, coming closer. He wanted to answer him, to warn him, but he couldn't, he couldn't stop coughing.
"Charlie?" The voice had come closer still, and there was a knock at the door, but still Charlie couldn't get himself to talk, could hardly get himself to breathe.
"Holy –" Philip started when he'd opened the door, but didn't go on. "Nate, call for back-up!" he shouted downstairs. "Charlie?" he then called out and a second later also started coughing.
Suddenly, there was a hand on Charlie's arm, and he let it guide him through the smoke, across the room and down the stairs. Things were better here, he could tell, even though his lungs were still on fire and the tears were still blurring his sight. He was still assailed by a stab of excruciating pain every time the coughing was rocking his rib-cage, but there was less coughing down here. The smoke was thinner, he could tell, there was –
Clang!
Another noise, just like the first one, and Charlie thought he saw movement. The next moment, his mind had put the pieces together: another smoke bomb, just like the one upstairs.
"Stay with me, Charlie!" he heard Philip say, his urgent warning interrupted by his coughing, but stressed by the firm grip around Charlie's arm. "That has to be Brown, he'll want to lure us out of the house, so whatever happens, do not leave the house until we know it's safe! We just need to sit this out until back-up has arrived, okay?"
Charlie's lungs wouldn't have enabled him to agree even if he'd wanted to, and he wasn't sure whether he should have given his consent to Philip's proposal. Sit this out? How was that a good idea? Whatever compound had been mixed up in those smoke bombs, it was evidently something that was irritating their airways, so chances were that it was a toxin of some sort. And in that case, wouldn't sitting this out mean nothing more than choosing the deep blue sea over the devil?
"Go," he squeezed past his throat when his mind had reached its conclusion, but still the word was hardly discernible between his gasps and his coughs, so he fought to get out the message more clearly. "Get out." Nate and Philip weren't the ones on Brown's list, so he probably wouldn't try to shoot them if they exited the house. And what good were they doing here? They couldn't protect Charlie from the gas, and with all the smoke, he currently didn't need protection from a sniper either.
"Forget it," he heard Nate's voice, muffled by something, probably a cloth he was holding over his face. It still wasn't very effective, though, for he was starting coughing, too.
For a moment, Charlie wondered whether he should waste his energy on insisting, but secretly, he was glad that they stayed, for even though they couldn't improve his situation from an objective point of view, he still felt a lot better in their company than he would have felt alone.
"Just try and take regular breaths," Philip told him between gasps. "This should be –"
Bang!
Charlie froze. He felt as though his heart had stopped, and for a moment he thought he was dreaming. It was as though someone had stopped the flow of time and he was regarding this strange scene from afar, but only a moment later, the pain was back in his chest along with the coughing.
"Are you hit?" he heard Nate cry out, a hint of panic in his voice.
Charlie, still unable to talk, shook his head. He had no idea what was going on, but he remembered the pain from the first gunshot, and he would definitely know if he ever experienced anything of the sort again. Yet, it had been a shot, hadn't it? It hadn't sounded like the smoke bombs, it had to –
There! There were voices outside, distorted through the shouting. But if Charlie wasn't mistaken, if he'd heard right… hadn't that been Ian?
"Charlie, get out! We got him!" he then heard his brother's voice, and he tried explaining that to the two agents. He couldn't, though, he was no longer getting any air into his lungs.
Apparently, however, Nate and Philip had recognized Don's voice as well, for they were pulling him with them, and it was only now that Charlie realized how wobbly his legs were. Maybe it was the fever, maybe the coughing, maybe the feeling of suffocating, but he just couldn't seem to get his legs work.
"Charlie?!"
Don's voice was louder now, closer, but still distant and also muffled, like Nate's had been.
Like Nate's was now. "Stay outside, we got him!" he shouted back and Charlie was dragged further, was pulled along the room by two strong hands through a directionless world of smoke.
Suddenly, there was coolness, and he realized the ground had become softer. A moment later, the dragging and pulling had come to an end, and so had Charlie's strength. He let himself fall where he was and cherished the sensation of the damp grass underneath him and of the cool night air that slowly came to his awareness, filling his lungs and very slowly, very gradually making the smoke disappear. He relished breathing in the scent coming from the grass beneath him, the scent of water and earth, of the fertile soil. The scent of life.
"Charlie, buddy, are you okay?"
Only now did Charlie become aware of the hand on his shoulder, of his brother's presence. He took another couple of flat breaths, or tried to, his attempts being interrupted by painful coughing fits. When after some moments of confusion, of fighting to get orientation, he'd finally understood his brother's question, he nodded, first reflexively, then with more conviction. He was alive and there was air and the damp grass was cooling his head, that was all that he could wish for.
There was a second figure then kneeling beside him in the grass, another hand. "They seem to be alright, how's Charlie?" Colby's voice.
"We need to call an ambulance," he heard his brother say, but felt too exhausted to convince him that he didn't need one.
"We already did," Nate said, his voice a little further away, and still raucous, "they should be here any moment. Where's Brown?"
"Agents Reeves and Edgerton are taking care of him, Edgerton shot him in his shoulder," Don explained before he turned back to him. "Charlie? Are you still with us?"
Charlie nodded again, but it was still all he could do to get air in and out of his lungs.
"He's sweating," Don observed with barely concealed concern in his voice, "you think that's the gas?"
If Charlie hadn't had his eyes closed already, he would have done so now with exasperation, even though he understood that he was more annoyed with his body's weakness than with his brother's concern. He tried to tell him he was fine, but somehow, he still couldn't get enough air in his lungs to make his vocal chords comply. He'd never before realized what a gift the ability of speech was.
"He's been feverish all day," Philip remarked, still between gasps, and Charlie was immensely grateful to him for doing some explaining. "Besides, Nate and I aren't sweating. Even so, what on earth was that? And how did you get here so fast?"
"That's a long story. We don't know what kind of gas he used, but it was probably something containing HCl, you know anything about that?"
Charlie's eyes shot open then and he could see the worried expression on his brother's face, who'd turned his head towards the NSA agents. He didn't hear an answer, so he could only guess that they were shaking their heads, which made him all the eager to give his brother a reply.
"Charlie? You know anything about that?" Charlie heard Colby's voice, and when he turned his head was met with two serious eyes who were studying him with concern.
He nodded. "It's okay," he gave them the short version of what he knew about the halide. Sure, it had some more than unpleasant effects when inhaled, but as long as their lungs were still working fine now and the effects of the gas were lessening by the minute, there was not much reason to be concerned about lasting damage. However, he couldn't deny the fact that if they had been staying inside the house further, if they had inhaled the fumes any longer, things might have ended a whole lot worse.
"You sure?"
Charlie swallowed and chose to go the more arduous way of the long explanation, mainly because it wouldn't make him choose between a simple yes or no – with yes being a lie and no being an answer that nobody wanted to hear.
"It's hydrogen chloride," he explained between gasps, wincing every now and then when his lungs expanded far enough to remind him of his broken ribs. "It induces coughing and inflammation, but apart from the lungs, no other organs get affected by it, I think."
"You should still get checked out, all three of you," Don decided. "Now what was that about the fever?"
Despite Charlie's feeble attempts to fend him off, Don managed to feel his forehead, and since he had no trouble recognizing the touch of his brother's hand as quite cool, he was well aware that Don couldn't miss the difference in the temperature either.
Yet, Charlie chose to pretend that everything was fine. The ambulance would soon be here anyway, and then they would get some answers. Before they were here, though, he was content with just lying in the grass and concentrating on his breathing. Right now, he had absolutely no desire to think about what kind of damage had been done to his body, there would be time for that later.
"I'm fine, Don," he therefore told his brother what they both knew was more than just a stretch of the truth. "If this case has made one thing clear, it's that mathematicians don't die, they just lose some of their functions."
He was still panting a little from the effort of talking, but when he saw their faces, he frowned. What he'd said in an attempt to lighten the mood had given him nothing but eye-brows drawn together in concern.
He closed his eyes again, feeling utterly exhausted. "Should've known better than to waste my math jokes on you," he mumbled, giving into his fate of waiting for the ambulance.
Don hesitated before opening the door. He was apprehensive about going in, especially when he heard David's happy laughter floating out to him. He was quite certain that his entrance would put a considerable dent in the atmosphere of joyfulness inside, and he did not want to see that happen. On the other hand, he was aware that the bad feeling he was experiencing was exactly why Charlie had invited them all over. He wanted to fix the bond that had been broken within the team, in fact all bonds that Don had managed to break during the past couple of days. But Don knew better than his ever-optimistic brother. This wasn't something that could be fixed with a nice evening among friends. He'd broken his team's trust, he'd been lying to them and he'd been manipulating them and using them for days. There wasn't really anything that could be done to fix that, definitely not overnight.
Still, despite everything, Don couldn't help but feel hope that maybe, there was still a chance that his friends might forgive him, and if there was a chance, he had to try, even if it meant risking to face their rejection.
He felt his mouth become dry when he entered. Their talking subsided for a moment while they were giving him glances he couldn't quite interpret, and their greetings were subdued, too, before they resumed their conversations.
They were all here: his team and Ian, the two NSA agents, Larry, Amita and of course Charlie and his dad. Everyone except for Millie, who'd had to do some work, and judging by the way his father had told him that, Don couldn't shake the feeling that it was Charlie's resurrection and the ensuing paperwork that was keeping her away tonight. But even so, with all the people in the room, his dad was the only one who actually stepped forward to greet him.
"I'm so glad you came," he told him in a low voice, and despite the reaction he'd received from the rest, the words made Don feel a little better.
Charlie had not gotten up at Don's entrance, but was still looking at him and searching his eyes. However, when Don looked back, he was thrown by the stare in Amita's eyes, who was sitting next to Charlie on the couch. When their glances met, she stood, then whispered something into Charlie's ear and fled into another corner of the room, towards Larry and Megan.
Don's mouth became dryer still, but he took comfort in the fact that at least in Charlie's eyes, there was no hatred to be found, so that was where he took his refuge.
"Hey," he greeted him in a low voice as he sat down beside him, putting a hand on his brother's back. "How are you doing?"
There was the ghost of a smile on Charlie's lips when he gave him a nod. "I'm okay. I've never before realized just how great of a scientific achievement pain meds were. I hope whoever invented them got the Nobel Prize for their troubles."
"Not to forget the inventor of antibiotics," Don added, trying to fall into the light tone Charlie had chosen. "How's that pneumonia coming along?"
"It's okay, it's only a light bout. Anyway, aside from helping Dad in the kitchen, I've spent most of the day in bed, so here I am, as fresh as ever."
"I still think we should have done this at a later time, when you would have been feeling better," Don said and couldn't help but think back to last night, when they'd rushed his brother to the hospital for the second time in only one week. True, the smoke bomb hadn't caused any further damage, but instead, the shot had caused more damage than they'd thought, or rather brought it about. Apparently, due to his injuries, Charlie hadn't been breathing properly over the past couple of days, which had led to an infection of his lungs. It wasn't overly severe and could be well treated at home, but still Don thought that Charlie should just take things slow for a while.
But of course, as always, Charlie had ideas of his own, and he gave Don a shrug. "I figured we had better put this whole mess behind ourselves rather sooner than later," he said with an easygoingness that Don didn't buy for a second. And he knew how important this was to Charlie, he'd been there last night when he'd invited the team over, thanking them and apologizing to them at the same time, both with an earnestness that Don had hardly ever seen about his little brother.
And somehow, it had done the trick, they'd not only agreed to come, they'd shown nothing but forgiveness towards Charlie's actions and gladness about the fact that he was still alive. Somehow, however, Don doubted that the same mindset applied to him as well, and even if he hadn't known that before coming here, the reserved reception would have been enough to consolidate his fears.
"Don." His tone made Don look up, and he was confronted with the earnest look in his brother's eyes. "I've been meaning to tell you… I'm really sorry."
Don shook his head smiling, despite everything. "What for? This wasn't your fault –"
"It kind of was."
"Right, so you wanted to get shot, that's what you're telling me? No, buddy. I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but it wasn't your idea to lie to everyone, that was all your NSA friends and myself. And I know you wouldn't have agreed to this if you had known, so this is still my responsibility to take."
"Actually," Charlie started, but had to clear his throat before he could go on. "Actually, I think you're wrong. I mean, sure, I didn't know about the lying technically, but to tell the truth, it became pretty obvious after a day or two, at least with regard to Amita and Larry. I mean, I tried not to think about it, and I tried telling myself that as long as you were keeping me out of the loop, I wasn't responsible for what you did, but I could tell what was going on. I could have tried to convince you to tell them the truth, or find some way to get in touch with them, but I didn't. I kept my mouth shut, and I did that because… because of the worst reason of all. Because I was scared."
The words, their tone getting unstable towards the end, were accompanied by a pinched expression that it hurt Don to see on his brother's face. He put a hand on Charlie's knee, making him look up at him. "Buddy – an assassin was after you. Being scared is a good thing here. I mean, we can all say in hindsight what might or might not have been necessary to keep you safe, but while taking safety precautions, fear is a very good adviser."
Charlie nodded. "That's basically what Amita said, and I think you're right, I just… I wish we could have done this differently. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad everything worked out the way it did, and I… I'd really like to thank you for everything you did. I'll never forget that."
Don swallowed, but kept looking into his brother's earnest face, mesmerized by his expressive eyes that seemed to convey a whole myriad of deeply felt emotions: there was sorrow there, true, but the things that caught Don's attention were the positive feelings he thought he could see, love and thankfulness. For a moment, Don felt as though he was looking right into his brother's soul, and at this moment, he felt that there was a connection between them that was so deep and so strong that he almost seemed to be able to touch it.
Charlie cast down his eyes then, breaking off the moment, but the memory remained, setting deep roots in Don's heart and mind.
"But as much as I appreciate what you did for me," Charlie continued and cleared his throat, "I keep thinking that maybe we should have tried a different way after all. Amita and I have done some talking about this, and I get it, I mean, even though she understands we had to do it, she's still upset because… well, she poured her heart out to you and Dad, and I guess something between you got damaged then, and I… I guess that's similar to what happened between you and your team. I'm just so sorry you were put in this position because of me. I know how important it is that you can trust your team, and they you."
Don felt a lump in his throat and tried to swallow it down, but it remained. "Yeah," he managed to squeeze past it and rummaged through his brain in an attempt to find a way to turn back time, to take a different path that would end somewhere else than this dark place he now found himself in. All he could think of though was that moment four days ago, when they'd left CalSci, when he'd heard the bang and had thought to have lost his brother forever. It had only been a couple of seconds, but the moment, the feelings it had evoked, it was all still so forceful, so vivid on Don's mind and so clear that there was no simpler truth to be found.
He looked up then, right into his brother's eyes, and his conviction was strengthened further. "I'm not sorry," he said, and was surprised at the firm tone of his voice. There had been little of that during the last couple of days. "I mean, of course I'm feeling bad for lying to everyone, but… These are consequences that I can accept, it's a price I'm willing to pay. The important thing is that you're okay, and the idea that you might not be okay if I had acted differently is all that matters, at least to me."
Now that the words were out, Don became aware of what he'd said there, and suddenly, he was feeling very uncomfortable. He felt himself blush, so he was glad that at that moment, the timer on the kitchen table went off. Saved by the bell.
"Hey, Dad," he said as he jumped up from the couch, "seems like the roast is ready."
"Oh, good. Would you mind helping me in the kitchen? Everyone else: to the dinner table, please!"
"I'm gonna help you, too," a voice said behind Don as he was fleeing into the kitchen and he whirled around, only to be faced with his brother again. "After all, I was the one to invite everyone over, and I still don't feel I've been doing my fair share on the preparations."
"Don't worry, son," his dad said with that mock sobriety that had just a hint of playfulness in it, a hint so small that you only heard it when you knew him well. Otherwise, you had to wait for the punchline, like everyone else. "Trust me, you'll no longer complain about unemployment once the guests are gone, for then you'll have plenty of dishes just desperate for your undivided attention."
Don grinned at the image, but knew it would never become reality. After everything that had happened, there was no way his dad was going to leave Charlie alone with anything, much less a mountain of dishes. After all, Charlie was still recovering, and Don wasn't just thinking of the pneumonia or the physical aspects of getting shot. He knew he still had nightmares about the shooting, so it was a safe bet that Charlie still had those as well.
Their dad had just taken the roast outside and Don was about to follow him with two bowls of salad in his hands when he was held back by his brother's voice, which had a somehow serious tinge to it.
"Don," he said, making Don turn around towards him. He tried to decipher the look in Charlie's eyes, but wasn't sure whether he was seeing it right. He would have expected some sort of sorrow there, maybe affliction, but definitely not the serenity he was met with.
"Just for the record," Charlie said in a low voice, and now the serenity was accompanied by a soft smile, "I love you, too."
For a moment, Don just stared at the back of his brother, who was joining the rest of the party. Then, unable to stop it and not willing to either, he felt a grin spread out on his face. Coming here hadn't been such a bad idea after all.
Still, his mood got a little set-back when he joined the others and literally felt some of the cheerfulness leave the room with his entrance. They started eating, but all of a sudden, Don couldn't rid himself of the impression that they'd all be having a much better time if he'd just decided to stay at home. It was obvious that they were still resenting him for lying to them, and the worst part was that he had nothing to defend his actions with, at least nothing that they didn't already know.
They'd finished the main dish and his father stood. Don was just about to get up as well to help him get the dessert when he realized that his dad had something else in mind.
"I'd like to say something," he started and immediately had the room's attention. They all knew that Alan was more a man of action than of words, so when he decided to speak somewhat publicly, it was safe to assume that it was of some importance to him.
"I'd like to thank you all for everything you did to resolve this matter," he said, and the little cheerfulness that had still been in the room was exchanged for something much more sober. "I owe it to all of you that my son is still alive, and I'll be forever grateful for that."
Don risked a glance at his brother. His face might have been a little flushed, but that might also have been the effects of the fever. In his eyes, however, there was an expression so serious that Don knew he was well aware of how close this had been, and how much they'd relied on everyone here to resolve this mess.
"At the same time," Alan continued and had to clear his throat, "I would like to ask for your forgiveness. While most of you have shown it towards Don that you're not happy with the way we handled this matter, none of you have been treating me this way, so… well, I'd just like to come clean, so-to-speak. I'm not sure you realize, but I too knew that Charlie was still alive, and I too have, in a way, been deceiving you all, and I am very, very sorry for that."
There was an awkward silence in the room, and Don could tell that Alan's speech didn't come as a surprise to anyone. Still, it put something out in the open that until now had been graciously overlooked by everyone. Yet, Don wasn't fooled. His father's deceit had been nothing near Don's, for he hadn't been standing there lying to everybody every day, and at the same time using them to hunt down Charlie's killer.
"You know," Larry eventually said into the silence, "I have done a lot of thinking on this conundrum, and I must say, as much as I am opposed to dishonesty..." He paused, letting his gaze linger on Charlie for a couple of seconds before he continued, "I think I can see your point. There was a life on the line. I'm still not sure whether I would say it was the right thing to do, and it wasn't like honesty would have necessarily or even likely entailed any form of harm coming to Charles, but… well, there was a chance. And I must say, if someone had put his life into my hands, I would have handled it with the utmost care as well."
His words were met with a new round of silence until David finally said, "I guess we all get why you did what you did. What I still can't get my head around is how easy it was for you to take us all in."
"If it's any consolation," Nate Greene put in, "he gave us a pretty hard time before consenting to our plan."
"That doesn't count," Megan said, and Don felt his spirits sink. "Giving people a hard time is one of Don's most favorite activities, I think they call it the Eppes-obstinacy." Don looked up then and saw the ghost of a smile on Megan's face, an olive branch.
"Really?" Charlie asked in a daring attempt to join the game. "I thought it was just me he likes to give a hard time."
"You should have realized by now that while Don may love to make your life difficult, there are other people he likes to pick on even more, and that's everyone who decides to pick on you," their dad said, and Don thought it was high time someone broke this banter off.
"Alright," he said, holding up his hands in surrender and realizing that his head was starting to feel hot with embarrassment, "I think that's enough talk about me, now how about we get on with dessert?"
"No, no, no, hold on," Colby interrupted him with a look of ingenuity on his face that Don didn't quite know what to think of, "why don't we just make the best of it? We could make this some official exercise thing, you know, we could request to do one of these trust building programs, where we take a couple of days off to go camping somewhere."
Megan raised an eye-brow, knowing Colby wasn't exactly renowned for his faith in psychology, or the 'feely-touchy-stuff', as he liked to call it. "Are you really so desperate to get vacation time?"
"Well, yeah, aren't you?"
"You don't actually expect me to do a trust exercise with you, do you?" David threw in, much to his partner's surprise.
"Why wouldn't you? What did I do?"
"What did you do?" David repeated with indignation in his voice, but with a teasing glimmer in his eyes. "What didn't you do! No, forget it, if it ever comes to letting someone lead me through a mine field, I'm gonna take Don or Megan, at least they never ate my lunch."
"That was one time!" Colby defended himself. "And I'd been up all night for that stake-out!"
"It was bacon with mayo from the deli across the street, and it was delicious, and you know it."
Despite himself, Don felt his spirits brighten up a little. True, there might still be some work to be done to win back his team's trust, but he could feel that at bottom, everything was still alright between them, and that was because everything had been alright between them all along. There was a foundation of trust and friendship at the bottom of their relationship that was so strong that not even a natural disaster could tear it apart, and for that Don was ineffably grateful. As badly as he may have messed up, he could still trust on their willingness to forgive him, because they were more than just friends, more than a team, they were a family, and no matter what happened, they would never let each other down, they were sticking together as one.
The only ones he was still a little worried about, even though they were equally part of this family, were Amita and Ian, but it was as though Ian had sensed the silent question and decided to respond to it.
"As much as I enjoy your shoptalk about lunch theft," his quiet voice filled the room, "I think we should do this properly. I mean, I'm no expert on these things, but I think this calls for a toast. What do they say, all's well that ends well?" He raised his glass and let his gaze linger on Charlie for a second before he added seriously, "I guess in that case, we don't have anything to complain about, for I think we can all agree that this thing ended a whole lot better than it could have."
There was a moment of silence before David let his own glass join Ian's, breaking the tension by a hearty, "Hear, hear!"
The others joined in as well, Amita too, accompanying the gesture with a soft "hear, hear" and a cautious smile in Don's direction. At last, Charlie joined the toast, whose red face indicated that for once, he was more than a little embarrassed to be the center of attention.
Don felt himself smile as he regarded his family and gave Ian a thankful glance. His friend had said it right, All's well that ends well.
- finis -