A/N: Hey everyone. Again, thanks for the reviews and I'm sorry for the delay. Writer's block hit, plus plus three out-of-town trips in the last month, a funeral, and I'm graduating from high school in June, so needless to say it's been a bit chaotic. Hopefully this'll jump start my muse.
And you should all know that a hundred percent more likely to coax my muse into complacency if I have reviews. I just want two words from you all: "Still reading." That way I'll know you're still with me.
Chapter Eight: The Family Eppes
"Doctor Eppes?" the officer said, his voice breaking through Charlie's haze.
"What?" Charlie asked, blinking twice, his eyes stinging. He wondered, dazed, if he'd been crying, or had he just stared off into space, too shocky to blink? He didn't want to check, his hands were still sticky from Alice's blood, even after he'd washed them. The thought of having his hands near his face... No.
"We're here, Doctor Eppes."
It was then that he noticed that the officer was outside, holding the door open for him. A quick question managed to push it's way through his haze.
Why?
And the answer a moment later.
There are no door handles. They transport suspects in the back seat. He came around because I couldn't open the door from the inside.
Charlie sighed, sagging his head for a moment, wishing that his brain would, for once in his life, shut up and let him be.
He pulled himself out of the back seat, and threw a half-hearted thank you to the impossibly young officer while he stumbled towards the front door of his house. Charlie wanted to go to the hospital, but he couldn't, not like he was now. He needed to shower, change his clothes... He needed to tell his dad.
Charlie paused when he got to the door, his hand hovering over the knob. Again, a wave of revulsion of his bloody hand, on the door handle, leaving Alice's blood... His stomach surged, and all of his horrors were overcome as he raced to the bathroom and retched into the toilet. When stomach settled down, Charlie leaned back, resting his back against the wall and cried.
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When Alan walked up the front path to the home he shared with his son, he wasn't entirely surprised to see the front door cracked open. When Charlie had been young, he'd get so wrapped up in his head he'd leave the door open all the time, but it'd been years since...
"Charlie?" Alan called, trying to quell the fear rising. There were a million reasons why the door could have been open, all of which were very rational and benign, and didn't foretell any great doom. But he was a parent whose child lived under the same roof, and a million irrational and horrific reasons involving his youngest son ran through his mind just as he thought this.
"I'm here, Dad." Charlie called, standing up, swiping away the tears on his cheeks. He walked out of the bathroom and caught his father's eye for just a moment before looking away.
Alan looked his son over and stopped in his tracks. Charlie was red-eyed and unshed tears were swimming along his lower eye lid, his hair tossled, and his clothes disordered. Alan's eye caught on the crimson stains on Charlie's shirt and pants. Was that...
"Is that blood? Charlie, are you hurt?" Alan said, crossing the space between them, looking closer for any sign of wound, his hands hovering, searching without touching.
"It's... It's not... not me, Dad," Charlie got out, gasping back tears.
"It's not..." Alan repeated, momentarily confused and relieved, but stopped suddenly, the thought hitting him with the force of brick. He struggled to keep his breathing calm. As terrified as he'd been for his youngest, a moment ago, was a mere shadow of a thought when compared to the ones centered now around his eldest. Alan steadied his voice as best he could, and asked, "Charlie, where's your brother?"
Charlie looked at his father, confused, and seeing the horror on Alan's face, wanted to slap his brain for disengaging momentarily. "It's not Don, Dad," he said. "Don's fine."
"He's fine? Don's okay? You're certain, I mean, if it's not your brother, and it's not you, what happened? Whose blood is that?"
"Alice," Charlie said, telling his father the events of the afternoon, in a voice too calm and too soft. A dim voice in the back of his head, told him that he was in shock, but he was too withdrawn, detached, to ponder seriously on it. And when Alan ordered Charlie to get a shower, and some new clothes, they'd go to the hospital together, Charlie was grateful for his father's strength to hold him up.
Alan, for his part, waited until he heard the shower running to pick up the phone. He was halfway through dialing Don's cell when he heard the front door open.
"Charlie?" Don called from the entranceway.
"He's getting cleaned up," Alan said, walking towards his son. "Charlie told me what happened, Donny. How could this happen?"
"I don't know, Dad," Don said, walking towards the kitchen. "You knew Alice was in town?"
"She called me a few days ago, she and Charlie have been gabbing on the phone like teenagers for days."
Don chuckled. Charlie had some of the worst phone manners that Don had ever seen, well, heard, actually. He was just ... awkward on the phone. He was far better with e-mails, where he had a chance to edit what he was saying. So the thought of his talking like a teenager...
Once inside the kitchen, Don pulled open the refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of beer, hoping that it would manage to calm his frayed nerves. The adrenaline rush had ended about twenty minutes ago, and now that he wasn't on Alice's case anymore, there was no where to channel what little energy he had. Now, the only things he could think of were Alice and Charlie.
"Are you sure you should be drinking that?" Alan asked, trying to keep his mind in some semblance of order. He'd thought of Alice as the daughter he'd never had, but between Don, Charlie, and Alice, she was the only one he hadn't envisioned ending up in on a hospital gurney. Not while Don worked for the FBI and Charlie was consulting. No, she seemed to have always been the one who would be safe.
"Look, Dad, I just watched a friend get peeled off the ground, so just back off, okay?" Don snapped, his tattered nerves finally giving way. But no more than the words were out of his mouth than he regretted them. "I'm sorry, Pop, you didn't deserve that."
"Forget it," Alan waved him off. "Are you going to be working on the case?"
"Nah," Don said, taking a drink from the bottle. "I'm too close to it. But Terry and David are working it. They said they'd keep me informed as much as they could, but they're more focused on getting Derick back right now."
"As they should be," Alan said. "As much as I want to see this guy, Michael Seed, strung from a tree, they need to worry about the boy."
"Yeah," Don said, he turned towards the windows, his jaw muscles working. If they'd give him five minutes alone with Seed...
"I'm gonna go see what's keeping Charlie," Alan said. "With the way he was acting earlier, he'd probably wash his skin raw."
Don nodded, remembering the painfully hot shower he'd just had, and suit that was waiting for him back at his apartment. He'd stopped there to change his clothes before coming over; he'd only been kneeling next to Alice a few minutes, but his clothes were ruined. He'd probably burn the damn things, as if that would unmake the last two hours.
If only it could unmake them.
Don wandered around the house for a few moments, while the cadence of his father's voice drifted down through the floor. His thoughts were, thankfully, interrupted by his cell phone ringing.
"Yeah? Eppes."
"Hey, Don, it's Ryan, Ryan Walling. You left a message for me, you said something about Alice."
Don took a deep breath and started to explain.
