Chapter Two

A/N: Okay, no complaints so here I go to update again. :)

Charlie slipped into the house he shared with his father very quietly in case he happened to be asleep. The lights had looked to be dimmed from the outside, so he started up the stairs.

"Get stuck at the office?"

Charlie whirled around. "Don, don't scare me like that!"

A small smile crossed his elder brother's face. "Sorry, buddy. It's late, ya know."

The math professor glanced at the clock on the wall. His tired eyes registered one o'clock. "Yeah, I guess it is. So why are you over so late?"

"I've been trying to get a hold of you."

"You could have come by the school."

"I did, and I saw Larry. He said you and a new professor were talking and probably shouldn't be interrupted. It wasn't anything urgent."

"What was it then?"

Don sighed and sat himself down in a chair. "I… I was thinking maybe I shouldn't have you work on this case."

Charlie cocked his head slightly to one side. "Why not?"

"They're professors that are disappearing, Charlie. I probably shouldn't get you too close…"

The younger Eppes brother smiled. "Don't worry about me, Don. I'll be fine. It's not like I'm running around with you in the streets making it known that I'm helping."

"True." There was a long pause. "So did you find anything?"

Charlie shook his head. "No, not yet, but I've got something started. I was going to go upstairs and work through it some more. I ended up talking with Dr. Paytes longer than I meant."

"Dr. Paytes?"

"A new professor at the school. Interesting man. Thought I was a student at first," Charlie ended with a chuckle.

Don grinned. "Not that that hasn't happened before."

"It happened more when I first started teaching."

"Well, I'm heading to bed, I'll see you in the morning."

"You're staying the night?"

"I hadn't planned on it," Don admitted, "but then again…. I hadn't planned on having to wait until one AM for my little brother to come home."

Don made his way slowly through the halls of CalSci, his gun in his hand. He felt slightly disoriented, as if he wasn't entirely sure why he was there, but knew that there was a certain purpose for it. With his gun in hand, he rounded the corner to what he recognized in some part of his subconscious as Charlie's classroom.

He felt the blood drain from his face at the site: Charlie lay face-down on the floor of the room, his messy curls shadowing his face and blood pooling beneath him. Don felt the world spin. "Charlie!"

"Charlie!"

Don Eppes flew from his bed, eyes wide. He looked around, noticing for the first time that he was in his old room in his father's house. Realization suddenly began to pour in that nothing had happened and it had all been a horrible nightmare. Yes, that was it, a nightmare. Right? Right. He glanced at the clock to see he had near to an hour more he could sleep and settled back in. He was staring at the ceiling for only a few moments before he pulled himself out of bed and down the hall.

Charlie stood with his back to the door, headphones over his ears with something or the other playing in them, and his marker running quickly over the whiteboard, numbers flowing from the ink and laying themselves out in a somewhat orderly manner for the mathematician's use. He turned after a moment, pulling the earplugs from his ears and focusing tired but lively eyes on his elder brother. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"I… had a dream," was all Don could manage, knowing when he said it how dumb it sounded to his own ears.

"Oh. You okay."

"Yeah. How's it going?"

This brought a smile to Charlie's face. "I think I know where he's going to strike next."

"That's great, buddy!" Don said as he moved closer. "Where at?" Charlie's explanation of his numbers were cut short when Don's cell phone rang. "Hello? Yeah. Okay, Terry. I'll be there within the hour. Okay. Bye." He looked at Charlie. "Where was the next hit going to be?"

"USC."

"A professor was just reported dead from there."

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