Chapter Twelve (B) January 21 – continued

"You wanted to see me, Charlie?" Terry asked as she closed the door behind her. If Charlie did want to talk, he'd probably want the extra privacy.

"Yes. Thanks for coming, Terry, I … didn't really know who else …" Charlie shrugged as best as he could and gave her a small smile. It hurt to move his face still, but he wanted to make her comfortable. This wasn't easy or especially welcome for either of them, but had nowhere else to turn.

"It's fine, Charlie. I told you once before that if you ever needed to talk, I'd be here. And, so, here I am."

Charlie swallowed and looked away. This was going to be a lot harder than he imagined. "I don't really know where to … I'm not very good at … talking about … stuff."

Terry chuckled. "Well, I can honestly tell you that it's a trait you share with your brother. He's not very good at communicating his feelings either."

"Terrific. At last, something we have in common," Charlie smiled again, ruefully, and then winced when the motion pulled at the stitches in his mouth.

Terry ignored the grimace of pain and kept talking. She didn't want to get him off this interesting track. "Actually the two of you have a lot in common. A lot more than either of you notice."

"Really?" Charlie was definitely intrigued. He had always been certain he had nothing in common with Don and to be told otherwise was, well, kind of heartening. They'd spent so much time in their lives expounding on their differences, it seemed unusually refreshing to consider they might actually have traits they shared.

"Mm hmm. You are both very methodical. I mean, very methodical. You approach an equation the same way Don approaches a case. And you are both very close to the vest about your conclusions until you're certain you're at least on the right track. Neither of you are inclined to go running off in a direction that isn't at least somewhat validated by the data. You are both very gifted. Don isn't a genius, but he's definitely above the scale on the intellect level. You are both determined. And stubborn. And you both have very high ideals when it comes to playing fair. Both of you value justice. And you are willing to put your whole selves into a situation when you believe your contributions will make a difference."

Charlie stared at Terry for a minute, taking in all she was saying. "All that?" he finally asked, dumbfounded that she had come up with that many similarities. "We really have all that in common?" It was too much to believe, in Charlie's mind, too much to hope for.

"All that. There's more, but I think you get the idea. You and Don, you're not so different as either of you think."

"Yeah we do have a lot more in common than I thought. A lot more now, too."

Terry watched as Charlie's expressive face took on a drastic change. As soon as he got to the word 'now', those shutters she had noticed came crashing down over Charlie's previously alight and interested eyes. It was as she surmised. Something that happened in this case was what prompted Charlie to ask for her. Something that he felt gave him something in common with Don. Something that wasn't good by any means.

"Why now, Charlie?" she asked, keeping her voice soft and non-threatening.

Charlie shrugged again and began to pick aimlessly at the blanket with the fingers on his good hand. She could feel the emotions rolling off him. This latent sixth sense was what gave her the edge in her profiling work. It wasn't any sort of ESP or psychic power, it was simply an ultrasensitive ability to interpret emotion in other people. As Charlie's feelings filtered through the gauzy membranes of her psyche, she used her ability to name them to herself. Guilt, fear, doubt, revulsion, confusion – all in one gut twisting package. No wonder Charlie needed to talk to someone.

"It's okay, Charlie. You can talk to me, you know you can. I know it's hard for you, but I want you to try, okay? Just take a deep breath and start anywhere. It doesn't have to be at the beginning. Sometimes the easiest way is to just start talking."

Charlie took Terry at her word, and, without preamble, dove in. "When I was in there … after he had … and I knew he was going to kill me I just, I knew I had to do something or I was going to die and I didn't want to die. I didn't want to end up like Bill and the others. I guess I didn't think. I just … I mean I did think. I thought about how to do it, but not really because it just came to me as I stood there. And after I didn't have time because he was there and he shot me and I knew it was then or I would never see my dad or Don again. I would never have the chance to make things right with him. I would never have the chance to be the son my father deserves."

Terry processed everything Charlie was saying, even though it came out very quickly. No need to ask who 'him' was. She knew from conversations with Alan that Charlie had been trying to make things 'right' with his brother for years, long before their mother's illness in fact. The young genius blamed himself for robbing Don of a normal childhood, for not being a normal kid brother. As far as being the son Alan deserved – Charlie couldn't possibly comprehend how proud Alan was of his exceptional young son. For someone so brilliant, Charlie could be incredibly ignorant.

As for the rest of what he was saying, she was pretty sure she knew what this was all about now, but she wanted to be absolutely certain before continuing. To make a mistake in her judgment this early could cause Charlie to shut her out and she knew that that would be disastrous for the young man. He needed to get this out.

"You were in the math building. And you were trying to get away from Carlson after he'd beaten you in your office." She made it a confirming statement instead of a question. She wanted him to know she knew where he was at in the memory. When Charlie continued on, instead of correcting her, she knew she was right.

"It was so dark. I could barely see. But the lightning was bright and there was all this stuff just sitting there. Everything was heavy. I knew I didn't have much strength. I knew it had to be something I could handle and I saw the cinderblocks. I knew I could lift it with one hand. And there was the cable, and it just came to me. I didn't think. I just … I just did what I felt I had to do but now… Don told me he shot himself. But I know what I did. I know what I made. I knew then that when I pulled that cable loose and the block came down that, if it hit him, he'd be dead. I knew it but I didn't think about it. And now … now I can't stop thinking about it."

"Charlie, Jack Carlson took his own life."

"If he hadn't, though, he would have died anyway. So it doesn't matter whether he ended it because I started it. I killed him, Terry. I killed a man. I'm no better than he was."

"Jack Carlson killed for some sick sense of revenge. He enjoyed what he did. You did what you had to do to save your own life, Charlie. That does not make you a killer like he was. Not by a long shot."

"But don't you see? It's not that I killed him, I know that it was self defense. It's that … oh my God, I …"

Charlie began to pant with the effort of controlling the panic that welled up inside him every time he thought about this. It had been haunting him ever since he was cognizant enough to remember what had happened and what he'd done. How could he tell anyone what he was thinking? He thought by sharing it he could work it out but now he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure he could burden anyone with what he was feeling.

Terry wasn't oblivious to Charlie's agony. His whole body was a portrait of anguish. Terry thought that he must have been in terrible physical pain from the tension that consumed him but she realized that his state of mind was such that he didn't feel it. From what she'd seen of this behaviour before, Charlie was heading into a full-blown anxiety attack over whatever was on his mind and it concerned her terribly. He wasn't anywhere near healed and this kind of stress couldn't possibly be good for him.

"Charlie," she ventured, "I think I should call for the doctor."

"No! No, no, no." Charlie repeated the word several times more as he hugged himself with his good arm. "I have to say this, I have to get it out before it … Terry I can't keep it inside anymore. I have to … I have to know if I'm going …" his voice dropped to a broken whisper and Terry had to lean forward to hear him, "… crazy."

Terry moved from the chair and sat on the edge of the hospital bed, as close to Charlie as she could get with all the equipment and IV lines. It was clear that some kind of intervention was necessary and she would try and honor his request for the moment.

"Charlie." She waited a moment then called his name again. "Charlie, tell me what it is that's bothering you. I'm here." She could see that he was trying desperately to calm himself.

"I … I feel… about Carlson … I …"

"Remorse? Charlie, that's very natural."

"No! Not remorse. I'm …" Finally, Charlie looked at her, and the shutters were gone. Terry could see with absolute clarity what he was thinking and her heart nearly broke for the torment it was causing him. Somewhere inside him the dam had broken and the words came pouring out in a hoarse, ragged, rush.

"I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry he's dead. I killed someone and I'm not sorry he's dead. He killed Bill. Bill was one of my best friends. He killed all those others and I'm glad he's gone, I'm glad! I'm as much of a monster as he is, don't you see? I'm just as guilty, just as remorseless, just as twisted. And I'm afraid that because I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel I'm going crazy and I don't know what to do. I can't tell Don because he'll … I can't tell Dad because he'll think I'm … I just don't know what I should do."

This was one of those moments when Terry was thankful she'd gone into profiling and not psychology. A psychologist would tell Charlie something vague and placating, something that might not exactly pander to his fears but probably would do nothing to assuage them, either. As an FBI agent, as someone who had 'been there, done that', Terry could tell Charlie what he needed most to hear – the truth.

"Charlie, I want you to listen to me and I want you to listen to me very carefully." Terry waited until Charlie's haunted eyes met hers before she continued, and when she spoke it was with calm and absolute conviction. She wanted there to be no misunderstanding about what she meant or how deeply she felt its truth.

"In our work, we sometimes come across people who are more animal than human. It is not some cliché, it is not some line of bullshit the media hands out to get higher TV ratings, it's the truth. It's our job to find these animals and deal with them and put them away so they can't harm anyone again. Sometimes we can make it happen so that no one gets hurt. Sometimes they back us into a corner and we are left with no choice. And when that happens, Charlie, not one of us, not me, not Don, not David, not anyone I've ever known in the Bureau or in law enforcement, feels anything but relief that that sick bastard is gone forever and won't hurt anyone ever again."

Charlie's eyes grew wide with the inklings of understanding as she spoke, but he remained silent. Terry could see the doubt diminish somewhat but the fear was still there, hiding in those ebony depths.

"I know how it feels to take someone's life, Charlie," she admitted quietly. "And I know how confusing it is. You feel badly that you've taken someone else's life, you wonder about their families and the people who loved them. We've been told since we were children that killing is bad. You feel like you've broken the law. But you also know what kind of person they really were. You know the sins they committed and the horror they imparted to others. And not feeling remorse or being sorry that he's dead doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you like him. It doesn't make you less of the person you were. It makes you one of us; one of the few who have been forced to stand between a madman and the millions of innocent people out there who go to bed every night feeling safe because there are people out there like us who are willing to take that stand when the moment comes.

"Your father and brother do not think any less of you because of what you did. They do not think you are any less than who you were before it happened. And they wouldn't be upset that you feel this way. I think it's more likely they would understand. And none of us see you as being like Carlson. The fact that you feel wrong because you don't feel remorse makes you different, Charlie. You have a conscience. Carlson never had one. Your conscience tells you you did something you've been told is bad, and you should feel bad for doing it. But your heart, and your wonderful mind, tell you that you did what you had to do. And your conscience will understand eventually, Charlie. I know it will. You just need to give it time."

Charlie swallowed and looked away, nodding slowly. "I guess … I just needed to know that… someone … understood, you know? Understood how I felt."

Terry carefully took Charlie's hand in hers. "I do understand. And so does Don. We've both been there, Charlie, and it's not a pretty place to be. But it does get better. I promise. And anytime you want to talk to me, I want you to call, okay? You're one of us, kid, and we look after our own."

"Thanks," he whispered, his voice breaking slightly.

Impulsively, Terry brushed a light kiss against his cheek and ruffled his unruly hair.

"Anytime."