Once more, with feeling: disclaimer and beta thanks are in Chapter 1.

Thank you all so very much for your reviews; I really, really appreciate them. They definitely encourage me to write more. So (hint, hint), you've got one final chance at the end of this chapter…

Thanks for reading! Hooray for Season Two!

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Epilogue
Thursday, July 14
6:35 P.M.
Dodger Stadium

Don leaned back against the concrete pillar and scanned the approaching fans. He'd arranged to meet Karen here outside the park to have at least a few minutes alone with her. Not that he wasn't looking forward to having her really meet his family instead of just shaking hands with them in his hospital room, but it had been too long since he'd seen her.

The corner of his mouth quirked up as he thought of what Coop would say about that. Probably something like, "If three days is too long, Eppes, you've got it bad." They'd had lunch on Monday after his checkup at the hospital, since Karen wanted to know all the details of his recovery. She was pleased to hear that he was coming along just fine, that his wrist and rib were nearly mended, and that since his head had shown no signs of anything more serious than the initial diagnosis of a mild concussion, he was free to go back to work after less than two weeks away.

He'd never been so glad to see his desk as he was Tuesday morning. Dad and Charlie had insisted he stay with them during his convalescence so they could keep an eye on him, and he was about ready to kill them after two weeks of their constant hovering. But he kept his temper in check, knowing that Charlie was still working through his guilt about having to stand by and watch what happened to his big brother. Terry had talked to Charlie and gotten him to explain why he had thought it was a good idea to sneak into the place where Don was being held captive, instead of the bone-headed idea that she (and Don) thought it was. He'd explained that he couldn't just stand by and do nothing, and he hadn't expected to be caught inside like he was. He swore that he'd never do something like that again, and she believed him.

So did Don, after having his own conversation with him. To Charlie's credit, he hadn't retreated into the garage or his office in response to Don's injuries, but it did take about a week for him to stop avoiding Don as much as was possible within the confines of the house. When Don finally cornered him late one night after Alan had gone to bed, a torrent of guilt came pouring out. All of the time he had been in the office next door, he had been not only watching what was happening to his brother, but realizing that it was for his own protection. And the thought of what could have happened nearly made him sick.

"I guess I never fully understood what that part of your job meant," he'd said quietly, turning a pencil over and over in his hands. "I mean, I understood it here, you know," and he tapped his temple. "But it's like when I ran all the numbers on the Charm School Boys, and I ran the numbers on the sniper, and I obviously still had no freaking clue of what either one meant until I actually saw it happen. And that all went by so fast; it was possible to absorb the new data and just move on." He had lifted his head and fixed Don with a steady look. "I never understood what it meant to give of yourself like that to the point where you're literally risking your life to protect someone else."

"Charlie…" Don had tried to think of how best to word what he wanted to say. He had finally decided that beating around the bush was not the way to go. "A lot of it was stalling for time, you know. It's not like they were going to let me go anyway."

He remembered how Charlie's face had gone white, and for a moment he thought he had completely said the wrong thing. Then his brother took a deep breath and said, "I know. But if you weren't as strong as you are, Don, they would have found me, too."

He had looked away then, saying, "C'mon, Charlie, don't tell me you wouldn't do the same thing for me."

Charlie had waited until he was looking at him again before replying, "I don't know if I could. But I sure would try."

They had continued to talk for a while until a huge yawn nearly split Don's jaw. Charlie had insisted that he go to bed, since he was still recovering from his injuries. But the slight tension that had existed in the Eppes household was gone after that.

On the other hand, it meant that Charlie began hovering as much as Alan was, to the point that Don had to call Terry one evening to get him out of there for a few hours on the pretext of an update on the smuggling case. She had agreed, amused, and spent a couple of hours with him at the local coffeeshop telling him about the huge number of arrests that had followed Jason Ramos's capture. Unbound to either the Russian or Japanese mafias by family ties, he had been more willing to cooperate than Don would have expected. Of course, it was going to cost the FBI a lot to keep him in protective custody before, during, and after the many trials that would result from the case, but that was part of the job.

The sum of the stockpile that Don had stumbled over plus the one later found at the Los Angeles site on Charlie's map accounted for all but 2 percent of the freon the mathematician had calculated as "missing." Terry was confident that more careful tracking in cooperation with the legitimate customs officials would turn up the rest. It turned out there were only three other customs officers in on the smuggling besides the ones Don had encountered. Also, they had eventually tracked down the remaining ten smugglers from Mick's original list, plus a handful more from Ramos's information.

Of course, they weren't going to be able to shut down the yakuza or volki completely, despite the wealth of material they had been able to gather. But Terry was confident that this particular smuggling ring was defunct, and that their information would help the FBI stop other freon operations across the country. He had asked her about Mick, and she had explained that the Ukrainian refused to go into witness protection, saying that he enjoyed his life in California too much to be transferred to some place like Topeka or Kalamazoo. Besides, he said, his accent would make him stand out no matter where he was. He'd always be looking over his shoulder, and he'd be happier looking over said shoulder if there was a California girl next to it. When Don asked if she qualified as a "California girl," or if Mick had expressed any interest in his own personal FBI protection, she'd quickly changed the subject.

Don was distracted from his ruminations by the sight of a tall woman making her way towards him through the crowd. As she got closer, he folded his arms across his chest and pulled his Dodgers cap more firmly over his head, shaking his head in disapproval. "Do I know you?" he called out as she approached.

She spread her arms wide and twirled around, displaying her Giants jersey with "Bonds" across the back. "You got a problem, Agent Eppes?" she asked.

He came closer and tapped her brown baseball cap. "You've got a lot of nerve showing up here dressed like that."

"I'm a pretty brave woman," she replied, moving towards him and putting her arms around his neck.

"Forward, too," he murmured, bending down to meet her for a long kiss. When they drew apart, he gave her a broad grin. "I like that."

She returned the smile, if a bit more coyly. "Are you sure you know what you're getting into here?"

He laughed, delighted at her attitude. "Karen, you are back!"

She cocked her head inquisitively. "What do you mean?"

"You," he said, giving her a small peck. "You're the Dr. Fisher I met in your office again. The one who wouldn't put her life and her patients on hold for some escaped convict until I could absolutely prove to her that she had to. The one who kept herself together in a pretty dangerous situation and managed to show more concern for others than herself at the end of it. That's what I mean."

Her cheeks turned slightly pink. "The one who had a handsome FBI agent watching out for her at every turn, including talking her down from being afraid of her own shadow?"

"Hey now, you were never that bad." His arms were still around her waist, and he gently rubbed her lower back. "Just needed someone to talk to."

"I'm still grateful to you for that. And not just because of what's followed after it," she said meaningfully.

He shrugged one shoulder and gave her a quick kiss. "Glad I could help."

"So how are you feeling?" she asked as they disentangled themselves and started walking into the stadium.

"Fine," he replied. "The cast is ready to come off in a few days, and my rib hasn't hurt for about a week now."

"How long until you're cleared for fieldwork?"

"Still several more weeks. But at least I'm back at the office."

"Always on duty, aren't you?"

"If it means being out of the house, yes." He handed over his ticket before following Karen through the turnstiles. "Let's just say I'm glad Dad and Charlie are going to have someone else to talk to today besides me. That way they won't keep asking me every five minutes how I'm feeling."

Her hand flew to her mouth. "I'm sorry! Here I am, nagging you too."

"Asking once is not nagging. Asking once an hour would be a problem."

"Got it." She slipped her hand into his as they walked along the concourse towards their seats. "So who's the starting pitcher?"

"Brad Penny. The Giants are toast. I hope you didn't have your heart set on doing anything this weekend, because you are so going to lose our bet." He swung their clasped hands between them, the gentle gesture belying his tough words.

"We'll see," was all she said.

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Two hours later, he was worried that she was right. Karen had been delighted to find that the row in front of them was occupied by a family of five who had come down from San Francisco for the game, and their little cheering section had plenty to cheer about. Each team had scored a run early on, but then after a series of errors in the seventh inning, the Giants were up by three.

But now, the Dodgers had scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh, and were on their way to tying it up. The announcer's voice rang out, "Now batting for the Dodgers, number nine, Jason Phillips!"

"All right! Come on, Phillips!" Alan shouted. "Hit it out of here!"

"Yeah, he's due for it," Don said, cocking an ear to hear Charlie's inevitable reply.

Karen spoke up. "You know that statistically speaking, there's no such thing as being 'due' for a hit."

Don stared at her, then at Charlie, sitting on her other side. He and Alan were both looking at Karen, who suddenly seemed a bit flustered. "Did I say something wrong?" she asked, looking back and forth between the Eppes men.

Charlie broke into a grin. "Not at all, Karen. Not at all."

"I mean, the odds of a batter getting a hit only depend on their batting average, not how many at-bats it's been since they last got on base," she went on.

"It's a common misperception," Charlie agreed, shooting a quick glance at Don.

"Hey, sometimes it works," he said defensively. "What about me calling that home run? Remember that, Charlie?"

There was a gleam in his brother's eye that he didn't like. "That's a good example, Don. Let me explain this to Karen." He turned in his seat to face her. "So last fall we're all at home, watching a game on TV, and Don said that the batter was due for a hit. I tried to explain very logically that it can be mathematically shown that there's no such thing as being 'due,' in a similar manner to what you just did."

"And what happened?"

"He hit it out of the park." Don leaned forward and propped his elbow on his thigh. "Numbers aren't everything, Charlie. Take it from an old pro. Baseball is about intuition."

The roar from the crowd distracted them, and Don looked up to see the ball bouncing into the outfield stands, and Jason Phillips standing on second base with a ground-rule double. "All right!" he shouted, clapping with the rest of the fans. "Told you he was due," he said, nudging Karen's shoulder.

"We're still ahead," she said confidently. "I guess sometimes you just get lucky."

"Wait, I haven't finished." That gleam was still in Charlie's eye, and Don shifted in his seat nervously. "I happened to see the box score the next day. And it momentarily confused me, because it said no Dodger had hit a home run. So I looked at the previous day's box score, and lo and behold, there was a home run by Green in the fifth inning. When I got home, I found the tape still in the VCR. Don wasn't using his intuition, he was using his memory."

Karen turned to look at him, mock disapproval on her face. "Don, shame on you, tricking your brother like that."

"It was Dad's idea," Don said quickly.

"Oh, sure, blame the old man!" Alan shook his head and looked at Karen. "You try to raise them right," he said in a long-suffering voice.

She giggled, and Don instantly forgave Charlie for telling his embarrassing story. But he still asked in an injured tone, "What, like you never tried to trick your sister?"

She sat back and folded her arms across her chest. "I'm the younger sibling," she said primly. "I was only defending myself."

"Tell me about it!" Charlie's voice grew more animated. "There was this one time when Don…"

He groaned and leaned back, looking at his father over Karen and Charlie's heads. Karen had rested her hand on his leg as she continued her conversation with Charlie, but Don still gave his father a put-upon look. Alan's response was a brief look at Karen, and a warm, approving smile at Don. He felt his mouth curve into an answering smile, and he lifted his arm to drape it over her shoulder. She gave him a briefly surprised look before returning her attention to Charlie, but snuggled a little closer under the shelter of his arm as she did so.

He almost didn't mind when the next batter struck out, and the inning was over. And after Charlie gave him an approving look that matched their father's, and Karen leaned her head on his shoulder to watch the remaining two innings, he almost didn't mind that there were no further runs scored: final score Giants 4, Dodgers 3.

Almost.

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(pssst) This would be that final chance I mentioned…while you're full of warm and fuzzy feelings, please leave a review. Thanks!