Brothers in Arms 3/5
Chapter Two:
Don's alarm clock was beeping and it was annoying him.
He wanted to turn it off but realized that his alarm clock didn't beep, it played music.
Then what was beeping?
He opened his eyes just as slits and looked around him in a daze, seeing machines with blinking lights next to him. This wasn't home and it wasn't Charlie's house. Charlie...
Don forced himself awake and tried to sit up only to have gentle hands push him back down.
"Charlie!"
"Shh... Don, it's okay." Terry's face appeared before him as she gently urged him back to his pillow. "You're in the hospital."
"Charlie? Where's Charlie?" Don was frantic and could not be dissuaded.
"He's right here." Terry gestured to the bed next to Don's where Charlie lay, also surrounded by machines. Alan was asleep in the chair next to Charlie's bed, his head lying on the blanket beside his son's hand.
"Is he all right?" Don couldn't take his eyes off of the respirator that proved Charlie was still breathing even if it wasn't on his own.
"It was close, but he'll recover and you will too." Terry was glad beyond belief to hear Don's voice again. She'd gotten the call and arrived at the hospital only a minute or two after they were brought in, both barely clinging to life. The sight of the man she cared most about, and his brother, so close to death had been devastating for her and she'd not been able to leave their side since.
"Dad... He must have been so..." Don had been so consumed with guilt at what he let happen to Charlie he'd completely neglected to consider the guilt from the pain he'd caused his father. Having lost his wife less than a year ago, the disappearance of both sons at once and the thought that he might never recover any bodies to bury must have destroyed him.
"Your dad is made of strong stuff, Don. He had faith in the FBI and in his sons to survive."
"How did you find us?" Don asked.
"A man called the police to report a bad smell from the vacant house next door. He was a retired hospital worker and said the smell reminded him of the morgue, of dead bodies. The police came out to investigate and found you both unconscious next to Carmen's body. Your photos had been all over the police stations for days, so they recognized you immediately and called the FBI right after they called for an ambulance."
Don nodded. "I wanted to save him. I failed."
"You kept him alive, Don. The doctors assessed that if Charlie had been alone, he likely would not have been able to drink sufficient fluids without assistance, and he wouldn't have made it long enough for help to arrive. As it was, he was dehydrated, but that wasn't the worst of his problems."
Terry paused for a moment, knowing what she had to say would be difficult for Don to hear. "Don, I doubt Charlie was able to talk at all so you might not know this, but it looks like in addition to the car accident he was also beaten. Based on the bruises, we're guessing it was with a tire iron."
Don winced and looked away. Another failure to protect Charlie from harm when he'd already gotten him caught up in this mess in the first place.
"We found the car and saw the damage. We guessed that you spun out the car to protect Charlie and that he wasn't hurt that badly. The kidnappers didn't want him conscious, probably because he tried to fight them off rather than let them take you. Forensics found skin under Charlie's fingernails so he must have fought them at some point and lost."
Charlie, his little brother, fighting off criminals trying to keep his big brother safe. It was almost too much for Don to bear.
"He has a serious concussion and some internal bleeding from the beating he took. He has four cracked ribs and one of them nicked his lung - which wouldn't have been so bad had he gotten immediate medical attention - but the internal bleeding got worse over time and damaged his lung. The doctors were able to repair the damage, but they're keeping him unconscious to avoid potential swelling of the brain from the head injury and to give him a chance to heal."
Don felt a twist in the pit of his stomach. He imagined Charlie, the genius, recovering only to find that genius destroyed by brain damage. Damage that would never have happened if Don had just kept Charlie out of his world. He also realized that, having missed the broken ribs during triage; it might have been his handling of Charlie that caused the rib to puncture his lung. How could he have been so careless with his only sibling's life?
"Don, I know what you're thinking. Stop beating yourself up over Charlie and just focus on getting well yourself."
Don couldn't look at her. How could he tell her there was no way he could turn off these constant thoughts of guilt and remorse? Don suddenly had a new understanding of Charlie's private P vs. NP hell.
Terry reached out and smoothed Don's furrowed brow. "Rest now. It's 3AM and Charlie will need you to be strong when he does wake up. So will your father. Now sleep..."
Her soothing voice and hands finally lured Don back into a restorative sleep.
Don's eyes fluttered and tried to open. He felt strange and realized it was probably the drugs in the IV he saw in his hand when his eyes finally opened.
"Donnie!" Alan stood up so Don could see him better. "I was so worried!"
"Dad..." Don tried to sit up but his father pushed him back down gently, much as Terry had done the night before.
"Donnie, you have five broken ribs and three cracked ones. You're not sitting up for a while so get used to it."
Ribs? Don remembered being in pain before but had pushed it aside to take care of Charlie.
"Broken ribs?" Don asked, trying to fight his way out of the drug induced haze enough to talk to his father.
"And a concussion. You didn't notice your ribs were broken? How can that be?" Alan was perplexed.
"Too worried about Charlie..." Don mumbled and Alan's heart broke. He had trusted his eldest son to care for his baby brother and he'd done it to the exclusion of his own well-being.
"Well, you don't have to worry any more. Charlie's right here and the doctors say he's progressing well. He's a fighter and he'll be back with us in no time." Alan tried to inject a note of confidence into his voice for Don's sake even though he'd spent the first several hours of their time in the hospital in near hysterics at how close both his sons had come to dying.
"I'm so sorry, Dad. It's all my fault..." Don's eyes welled up with tears now that he had to face his father and admit his failure.
"Donnie, no. I won't listen to this. You were not responsible for what happened. I know you don't believe that but I'm telling you now, I don't lay any blame on you and I know Charlie wouldn't either."
Don wanted desperately to believe him but knew that until Charlie woke up, he wouldn't know if his brother would ever want to speak to him again. In fact, in Don's nightmares, Charlie couldn't speak because the brain damage was too severe. He'd just looked at his older brother, the genius glint in his eyes now extinguished, with an accusing glare as if to say, 'you did this to me'.
Don looked at his father for a moment, then turned and stared out the window. He had no strength to argue and no will to believe his father's assurances.
Alan knew his son was hurting inside, but felt helpless to slay the demons that haunted his thoughts. All he could do was hold his son's hand until he drifted back to sleep.
At Don's insistence, his bed had been moved across the room so it was right next to Charlie's. Don wanted both to keep a closer eye on him and to be able to reach over and touch him when he woke from yet another nightmare in which Charlie didn't survive.
Charlie's doctors had finally weaned him from the medication that kept him asleep and promised he'd likely wake on his own within a day or so.
Don watched him carefully as did Alan, but Terry mostly watched Don. She understood his anguish and knew she could do nothing to help him until Charlie returned to him and forgave him, as she was sure he would.
She volunteered to take Alan to the cafeteria for dinner knowing he wouldn't eat unless forced to. Don made him go, swearing he'd call for them if anything went wrong in their absence.
Don was grateful to have a little time alone with Charlie. Their father had been a near constant presence, and Terry had obviously taken time off from work - as she was there nearly as much as Alan was.
Don wanted a chance to talk to Charlie before he woke up, afraid he'd lack the courage to say what he needed to say if he had to look his brother in the eye.
Don reached across the small gap between the beds and took Charlie's hand.
"Hey, buddy..." he began haltingly. "I know you're in there and I think you might just be able to hear me so I'm going to talk for a bit and hope you understand me."
"I am... god, I am so sorry, buddy. I should never have dragged you into my work in the first place. I know I only let you help on those stock fraud and IRS cases to get you off my back at first, but then... then you really came through for us on the Haldane case. I wanted to crack that case so bad but man, I was nowhere. Then you swoop in, and suddenly it's solved and a woman's life is saved. I was so proud of you that day. I just couldn't find a good way to tell you. I think you knew, but I should have made the effort to tell you how much it meant to have you help, to work beside you and do good. I mean, I knew you did good work, but I figured I had the whole saving the world angle on you as far as the tangible benefits of my work went. Then you come along right out of your ivory tower and prove to me that math, yeah math, can save lives too. God, do you even realize that you might have saved hundreds of thousands of people from the Spanish flu? I haven't doubted you since. But, you... I think you put too much faith in me. You were so sure I'd always get the bad guys and that nothing could ever go wrong on my watch."
Don's throat started to close up as the tears and pain threatened to overwhelm him. "But something did go wrong. You got hurt. Terry told me that by trying to save you from the effects of the car accident I opened you up to a beating that hurt you even worse. What were you thinking taking on those guys? They had a tire iron and you thought... I don't know what you were thinking, but I know I'd have done the same thing. But I'm the big brother; it's my job to take care of you. It's not your job to take care of me. Look where it got you. I'm okay and you're... you're..." Don couldn't finish. Looking at Charlie's pale and unnaturally still form tore him up inside.
Don grasped Charlie's hand tightly and stopped trying to hold back the sobs that had been building up in his chest. He held his brother's hand and cried out all his grief, pain and guilt until there was nothing left in him but the empty space where Charlie had once been.
