Tangential Planes 9/9

Chapter Nine:

Friday Night

Don opened the front door quietly, not sure if Charlie would be sleeping or not. His father's car was gone and the house sounded unusually silent.

He walked through the whole downstairs, even glancing into the backyard but there was no sign of Charlie.

Car missing... No Charlie... Don felt a knot forming in his gut as he wondered if his father had had to rush Charlie back to the hospital for some reason. He pulled out his cell phone and accidentally speed dialed Charlie's cell phone instead of his father's. He realized his error when he glanced at the phone's display but before he could hang up, he heard an answering ring coming from the stairwell.

Don bolted over to the stairs and saw Charlie crumpled over the risers halfway up.

"Charlie!"

Don dashed up the stairs, both phones forgotten.

Charlie was breathing steadily and his eyes were closed. Don felt for a pulse anyway, as if to reassure himself, and found it to be strong.

"Charlie? Charlie?" Don jostled him gently but he didn't respond. Don ran the rest of the way upstairs and grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom. He fumbled through it as he went back down the stairs and found what he was looking for: an ammonia inhalant.

He broke the vial and waved the strongly scented inhalant under Charlie's nose. He stirred, eyes fluttering until he made a face at the smell.

"Charlie? You with me?" Don asked worriedly.

Charlie opened his eyes and looked around him, disoriented and woozy. "Don..."

"Yeah, buddy. Want to tell me what you're doing on the stairs?"

Charlie looked around confused for a moment and Don gave him time to clear his head.

"I... um... I wanted to go to bed. Lying on that couch all day... My back was starting to hurt. I must have gotten dizzy..."

"Let's get you to bed then," Don said, patiently. "Let me know when you're ready for me to help you up."

Charlie took a moment to take a few breaths then nodded.

Don slowly helped him to his feet, slipping Charlie's arm around his neck with one hand and holding him up by the waist with his other. They managed the remainder of the stairs one by one with Don bearing part of Charlie's weight to help him stay upright. He faltered briefly at the top of the stairs, his head falling to Don's shoulder as his knees started to give way.

"No, no! Come on Charlie! Breathe! You can do it!"

After a few seconds the weakness passed and Charlie was able to stand up again without Don holding him up. After a short rest, Don led Charlie the rest of the way to his bedroom.

Don kicked the partially open door the rest of the way open and turned sideways to get them both through the narrow doorway. He was glad to see the bed had already been cleared off and the covers pulled down. No doubt his father's doing.

He eased Charlie down onto the bed, pulled off his shoes for him and pulled the covers over him.

He sat on the edge of the bed and watched Charlie start to relax after the exertion of walking that short distance. The anguish Don had felt on the plane swelled up inside him again. Only two months ago his brother had been a vital and healthy young man who rode his bicycle and seemed to have boundless energy. Now he couldn't even make it up the stairs on his own.

Don closed his eyes. He ran through those two months in his head. When had he gone astray? What had he been so busy doing that he hadn't noticed the color gone from Charlie's cheeks or the weight dropping from his already small frame?

"Don?" Charlie's soft voice startled him out of his reverie. "Something's bothering you."

Don let out a little laugh. "That's the understatement of the year. Charlie, I just found you passed out on the stairs on the same day you got out of the hospital!"

"Yes, but that's not it, is it?" Charlie said, staring at Don intently.

"No," Don admitted, avoiding Charlie's eyes. Changing the subject quickly he said, "I had a meeting this afternoon. It was with the NSA."

Charlie's eyes grew wide but he didn't say anything.

Don turned back to look at him. "They told me everything. They raised my clearance level to match yours so that we could talk about your projects. So I know about you asking for my clearance level to be raised, I know that they couldn't activate it until now and Charlie, I know about the water."

Don couldn't read the expression on Charlie's face so he continued.

"They showed me the map and the rankings you calculated for them. They told me about the timetable getting accelerated and about the dozen locations from your top fifteen that would have been affected last night if you hadn't helped out."

Charlie nodded just barely. "They came here today to tell me. They only briefed me on the dozen last night, not about you."

"So you know now that you did get the work done in time and that it was exactly what they needed to stop the terrorists."

Charlie nodded again.

Don paused for a moment. "Dad is always telling me how you want my approval. You want to impress me, make me proud. I never had a big brother so I guess I never understood that."

"You can't understand why I'd try to make my big brother proud of me?" Charlie asked quietly.

"No," Don said thoughtfully. "I can't understand why you wouldn't realize that I already am proud."

Charlie looked a little choked up so Don laid a hand on his frail arm and gave it a squeeze.

"Charlie, I've always been proud of you. You've been blowing me away since we were kids. You just haven't seen it. At your college graduation, when you got your doctorate, when you got tenure... You saw how proud Mom and Dad were but not how proud I was. Before you started consulting with the FBI you were never around when I would brag to my coworkers about you. Some of them didn't really believe me about what you could do. As soon as you started working with us though you proved everything I said about you and then some. Man, it shut them right up. Now that whole office respects you. That's not easy respect to come by, you know. Every time you make some brilliant leap that helps solve a case I just... I'm just so amazed at you and so proud to have you as a brother."

Charlie was almost overwhelmed.

"Now this project, stopping the terrorists. Do you have any idea how major this is? This is the kind of thing they put in history books! A hundred years from now someone could be reading how Dr. Charles Eppes practically single-handedly prevented a massive domestic terrorist attack. You think I'm not proud? Charlie, I'm in awe of you!"

Charlie looked like he almost couldn't take anymore.

"But Charlie..." Don's tone grew serious. "It stops now."

Charlie's expression swiftly changed to one of bewilderment. "What?"

"No more. I know now how important this project was but you can't do this to yourself any longer. You can't almost self-destruct every time the government comes to you with an emergency or else you won't be there for them to come to in the future. Do you understand me?"

Charlie swallowed hard. "I do."

"Good!" Don said, a little too forcefully. "You scared the hell out of me, Charlie! Do you have any idea how I found out about you collapsing?"

"Dad called you," Charlie answered.

"No," Don shook his head. "I never got Dad's calls. I was off-site that day and none of my calls went through. I found out on the plane coming home. I found out by reading the newspaper."

"Don... I'm sorry... I didn't know..."

Don stood up and paced the room. "I'm sitting there just reading my email and I get one from an old college buddy who says 'hey, read about Charlie in the Times today, tell him to get well soon!' I freaked out. I combed that plane looking for someone who had a copy of that paper and when I finally saw it..." Don stood still for a moment. "I felt the same way I felt when Mom told me... when she told me she was sick..."

"Oh, Don..."

"Dad was so angry with me, you know? I mean we're cool now, but he was right. A whole day shouldn't have passed without me knowing." Don shook his head. "I've been wracking my brains! What happened that I drifted away, that I didn't notice what was going on with you?" He paused for a moment. "I keep thinking about what you said a while back about us being from two different worlds. I guess if I had to put it in math terms for you, it feels like we're parallel lines or something. Destined to be side by side but never meet, you know?"

"Well," Charlie finally found his voice. "First of all, I'd say we're planes and not lines but that's splitting hairs."

"Charlie, I didn't mean to start you on a math lecture!"

"Hold on!" Charlie got up and sat on the edge of the bed. "I was going to say we're not parallel planes at all."

"We're not?" Don looked at him, confused.

"No," Charlie explained. "We're tangential planes. Tangential planes meet at one point. We meet at one point."

"Well, we do now I guess, since you've started consulting with the FBI," Don shrugged.

Charlie shook his head. "No, Don. That's not it." He gestured around the room. "We meet here. This is where we connect."

"This house?" Don asked.

"This family," Charlie answered. "It doesn't matter where we go or what we do. We will always be brothers. Yes, sometimes we might get distracted by life but that doesn't change our connection. Besides, I'm just as guilty as you in this. You got caught up in work and I got caught up in the project."

"But no more, right?" Don said. "You're not going to try going it alone again are you?"

Charlie chuckled. "I don't think you guys will let me do it again! Larry's even got a code word system worked out just in case."

"So you'll let us help you? Dad, Larry, Amita..."

Charlie nodded. "And it will help that I can talk to you now. I don't have to keep it a secret and let it eat away at me."

Don was struck by those final words. "Eat... You were going to go to bed without eating dinner, weren't you? Nice try. I'm going to get you something to eat."

"Not right now, please? Don, come on... Stay..." Charlie called out to him as he headed for the door.

"No talking me out of this. Sorry, Charlie."

Charlie got up quickly and put a hand out to stop Don. The sudden movement made his head spin and instead of grabbing Don's arm, he almost tumbled into him as he started to fall. Strong arms reached out and caught him and Charlie felt himself being placed back into bed. As his vision cleared, he saw Don's worried face looking down at him.

"You caught me," Charlie mumbled.

"That's my job," Don said with a smile. "Now no more getting up. I'm not going anywhere, you hear me? Well, maybe to go get you a glass of water." Don stood up and headed for the door. "That sound okay to you, Charlie?"

Charlie smiled. "A glass of water sounds just fine."