Disclaimer: I'm not in any way associated with the owners of Numb3rs. Any names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Summary: Charlie learns the hard way that (1 + 1) + 1 isn't always the same as 1 + (1 + 1).
Timeline: early season 3
A/N: If anyone had asked me to write something even remotely related to romance, I would have told you that was never going to happen, so please don't be too hard on me in these uncharted waters.

Chapter 1: A Fight

"Sounds good," Charlie said into his phone. "We'd love to come. Could you text me the address? Okay, thanks, see you there."

He ended the call and turned his attention back towards Amita, who was clenching her jaw in concentration, fighting the urge to look up from her laptop, at him.

"That was Don," Charlie said rather superfluously, since his loud voice had made it impossible for her not to follow most of the conversation. "We were right about the depot, they managed to arrest everybody belonging to the cartel. They're about to celebrate in a bar called Joey's, must be somewhere near your apartment. He invited us to join them."

"And you said 'yes'," Amita stated and didn't bother to hide the fact that her jaw was still clenched, by now predominantly in anger.

Not that Charlie would notice. "Well, yeah, although I don't think I'll wanna stay for very long, I'm having a bit of a head-ache."

"But we're still going," Amita repeated.

"Yeah, I think it should –"

"Both of us," she interrupted him.

Now, for the first time, he seemed to be picking up on her bad mood. "Something wrong? Don't you wanna go?"

"I at least would have liked to have a say in the matter."

Charlie was giving her a frown of incomprehension. "But I thought you were getting along well with the team," he argued. "And it's more or less on your way home anyway. And it's to celebrate the case they just solved, so you should come as well."

"Why?" she asked coldly, wondering if Charlie was going to pass the test.

"Why?" he echoed. "Don't you realize how much you've helped me out with this case?"

She closed her eyes, as though the leaden feeling of disappointment was pushing down her lids. "I've helped you out?" she repeated in a low voice, one that sounded rather menacing.

She lifted her gaze up at him again, seeing him swallow and struggle for words. "Well..."

"I did far more than 'help you out' with this case," she all but hissed. "I did most of the data-crunching in the beginning of this case, while you were still busy working on that paper of yours, I wrote the program that got us into their servers, and I had the idea that enabled us to find their depot, but you still make it seem as though you're the big mastermind and I'm just your secretary of sorts!"

"What? That's not true!" Charlie argued. "I never treat you as my secretary, and I never force you to help me out, you can always say 'no' if you don't want to!"

"Don't you get it? I don't have a problem with working on these cases, but I'd like to get some appreciation for the work that I do! You still seem to see me as your student at best, and I know I may not have been a child prodigy like you, but that doesn't mean I can't come up with a good idea every once in a while!"

"I never said that you couldn't –"

"Oh, didn't you?" she shot back. "Then what was yesterday all about? You completely dismissed my idea to find the depot without ever seriously considering it, and today you make it seem as though you were the one to come up with that!"

"That was something different!" Charlie argued. "Yesterday, we didn't have those satellite images, it wouldn't have worked!"

"It might have!" Amita gave back, knowing that she was right. "We could have at least tried, or at the very least discussed it, but we didn't, because you decided it wasn't an approach worth pursuing!"

Charlie shook his head. "Are we really fighting about this now? It all worked out –"

"You don't get it!" Amita almost shrieked, her desperation getting the better of her. "When we both consult on a case, we're officially equals, but you don't accept that, you still treat me as some sort of assistant, as a mere extension of yourself!"

"That's not true –"

"It's not? Then why do we always have to make things your way, why can't you listen just once to what I say?"

"I do listen to you –"

"Are you?" she interrupted him again, her anger having reached a new level, one that was filling her up completely and that made her so tense she just wanted to snap. "So what are you trying to say, that I'm being hysterical, that I'm just making all this up, that I'm just hallucinating how you treat me?"

He cast down his eyes, saying nothing, but that was saying enough.

"You know what, Charlie, maybe you should think again as what you see me, and while you're at it, why don't you think about how you want to see me, and if it's anything different from equal, then you may stop thinking about me altogether."

She watched how his head came up then, how his face fell, how the shock entered it, and she felt her own throat close up, despite herself.

"What are you saying?" he asked, his voice hardly more than a whisper now.

She didn't reply at once. What was she saying? On the other hand, her words had been rather clear, hadn't they? They'd been spontaneous, true, but didn't they say that the spontaneous reactions were the most truthful ones? So maybe this was what she truly wanted?

"I think it might be better for us to take a break for a while," she said, feeling her heart beat forcefully in her chest and fearing that any moment now, it might be going to break.

She swallowed when she saw his gaze, the emotion it suddenly held. His voice was still nothing but a hoarse, broken sound. "Are you breaking up with me?"

She blinked, fighting to keep the tears from spilling. It was an effort that took her a couple of seconds before she was able to explain in a rather choked manner, "I'm not saying that. But I think you should do some thinking about us, actually, I think we both should."

She tore her eyes away, unable to see that look on his face any longer. Instead, she grabbed her bag. "Now let's go, we don't want to be late."

"What?" Charlie asked incredulously, his voice husky. "You still want to go?"

She busied herself with rummaging through her bag, even though she knew that it held everything she needed. Yet, she needed to wait until her voice came back – and to make sure that meeting the team was truly what she wanted. But it was, wasn't it? She swallowed, exploring her options in her mind. Did she want to go meet other people? Well, no. But even more awful was the prospect of returning to her apartment, thinking over her relationship with Charlie and crying herself to sleep. And if she wanted to avoid both that and the by far worst alternative of spending the evening alone with Charlie, going to that bar seemed to be pretty much her only noteworthy option.