Chapter 14

Phones rang every few moments in Don's office but it wasn't the almost constant ringing that kept Charlie from concentrating. Thinking of Amita was. Charlie felt relief wash over him when Don called to tell him that they needed his help at with a fraud case at the office. It was going well. All it would take was another hour or two to tweak the equation to work in this case and then he would know where they would strike next (and judging by their pattern, he has enough time). Though it seemed like every time he picked up the marker it triggered a memory of Amita and he would get distracted.

"Ok one more time Charlie" Charlie spoke to himself picking up the marker, placing it to the board and a memory of the time Amita, he and Larry had sat in the staff lounge discussing the possibilities of children one day. He got so rapped up that he didn't notice Don walk in

"Hey buddy how's the equation going?" Don asked snapping Charlie out of his thoughts

"Oh um good. I should be done in another hour, two at the most"

"That's great. This means we'll beat them to their next target community"

"Good" Said Charlie turning back to the board

"Is something bothering you?" Don asked

"No"

"Charlie how many times have I told you that you can't lie? You've been at that one point in the equation for fifteen minutes and all you have to do is tweak it fit this problem instead of the one from last year, what's holding you up?"

"I- I can't stop thinking of Amita" Charlie admitted sheepishly

"Ah…you really love her don't you?" Don asked. Charlie was about to answer when Terry knocked on the doorframe of the conference room where Charlie had set himself up

"Hey Charlie" She said smiling "How's the equation going?"

"It should be done in about an hour" If I can actually start to concentrate again

"Good. Don, you have a visitor downstairs"

"I do?" Don asked questioningly. He wasn't expecting anybody and if it had been his father he would have been let through and even if he hadn't Terry would have said that it was his father

"Yes a miss-" Terry looked down at the paper "Mary Hughes"

"I don't know any Mary Hughes"

"Oh then I'll tell the desk to send her off" Terry turned but then Charlie yelled at her to stop

"Terry! I know her…that's Amita's roommate" Charlie added when both Terry and Don looked at him questioningly

"What! I didn't ask her to come here"

"Amita better appreciate this" Mary whispered under her breath. If she didn't love Amita so much she would have turned around when they made her walk through a metal detector and scanned her purse. The doors opened and she was a little confused on where to go next. Luckily a pretty blonde woman with a badge was waiting across the hall

"Mary?" The blonde woman asked, as she got closer

"Yes" Mary answered simply

"I'm Terry. I'll take you to Don" Terry said smiling and turning to the office. Mary was amazed as she looked around the office. It felt strange to be inside FBI headquarters considering that she had never even been to her own town's tiny division of the LAPD. After walking for a few minutes she had arrived at a conference room where she saw Charlie explaining something to two men, one of which looked very much like Charlie except for his hair

"Is that Don?" Mary asked pointing to the man that looked like Charlie. After a second she realized what she had said. She asked if that was the man that had said she was very good friends with. However, when she glanced at Terry she saw she was smiling

"Yes. I'll tell Charlie you're here" She said walking into the conference room. She stayed there for a minute, than Don, the second man and Terry left. Terry nodded signaling that she could enter the conference room now

"Hi Mary…I'll be done in just…one…second" Charlie said turning to see her enter and then turned back to the board to finish writing what he had started

"Ok" Mary took a seat and watched Charlie work. She was amazed (as most people are) that Charlie could know all of this. She was good at math. Passed her classes with an A- (more then she could say for most of the class) but this…this was beyond her grasp and to him it seemed as easy as adding two and two.

"I'm sorry. I just had to finish that" Charlie said placing the marker on the ledge and sat across from Mary

"That's amazing, whatever it means" She said gesturing at the board but also stalling for time trying to figure out how exactly to go about this

"I'll explain it to you one day but you must've had something really important to talk to me about, to have come all the way to FBI headquarters" Charlie said shortly

I thought he was supposed to be oblivious to everything but math "Yeah. Well it's nothing as important as what I'm probably interrupting you from but I wanted to talk to you about Amita"

"I thought so…I'm curious if this is good or bad news?"

"Well that depends on you"

"What do you mean?"

Here goes nothing

Sorry I couldn't resist. I'll try to write the next chapter between cramming for my finals.

I just wanted to thank all of you who read this (even those of you who don't review), I remember spending a very long time debating whether or not to write a fanfic because writing was always the place I could escape from the world and I was afraid to let the world in. Though I took a chance and you've all made it so worthwhile, that when I'm done with this one, I'm going to write a second one (which I already have the idea for so watch for it after I'm done). Enjoy the chapter guys.