Don Eppes, In Three Parts
Title: Don Eppes, In Three Parts
Fandom: Numb3rs
Summary: The phone rings. He ignores it.
Spoilers: Minors for Structural Corruption and Counterfeit Reality
A.N. Two more sections yet to come. I promise. Chapter titles from Mary Chapin Carpenter's "I Am A Town". Also, chronology? What's that?
i. I am clinging to my ways
He sits in the car for a full twenty minutes before realising there is no way he is going to leave now. Rapping his thumbs against the steering wheel one last time, he finally gets out with his duffel bag and heads for the door.
He knocks and there's a moment when he tries to figure out how much time he has to escape before the door opens, but it's a fruitless task. Charlie is the mathematician, not him.
It's past midnight. The neighbourhood is quiet and empty; the silence is unnatural. The house is dark except for a lamp in the front room. Dad's still up, then.
He's just about to give up, turn around (run away) when he hears movement; sees the light come on, his Dad shuffling towards the door.
"Donnie?"
He shrugs, mindlessly. "Hey Dad."
He has come home.
--
He's determined not to take an airplane although that would be the most logical course of action. Instead, he tells his dad he'll drive down (he'll need the car in L.A. he reasons). He can feel his childhood clawing at him, dragging him back and he fights it; fights the pull of gravity, returning him to Ground Zero.
He tells Kim he'll be back soon, hopefully. It's all right, she intones, the way she's supposed to. It's all right. Family comes first. She looks sad when she hugs him, as though she's party to a secret, a greater truth. When she holds him, it feels like goodbye. (He realises later that it was the transfer that changed everything; the transfer said, This is long term, however you want to spin it).
"I'll be back," he says. "I will."
The words taste like lies.
--
The phone rings. He ignores it.
--
He'd been almost nervous at the time but he was at that age when bravado overcomes all other senses, and so he'd asked her if she wanted something to eat and she'd said yes. It was a good thing that she'd said yes. He didn't have the right response stored up for "No."
(But why would she say no? It was only pizza and beer. Pizza and beer in a Laundromat, waiting for midnight to come so they could close shop).
So she said, "Yes," and he said, "Great," and they ate pizza and drank beer and when she kissed him, he didn't resist and it was the beginning of something comfortable and new. It was a beginning that led to an end, but it was a quiet end and at least their expectations weren't out of reach. So when it was over, it was over and it wasn't that big a deal after all.
"Just history," she said.
--
The phone rings.
(Don can't do this right now).
It keeps ringing.
--
Somewhere en route, he has to make a stop. It's a quiet town, making its money from the travelling crowd. He books a room in a motel, leaves his phone in his bag (three missed calls so far), heads for a bar and a beer. He meets a girl.
She's golden brown from the sun, dark haired and wild eyed. She's not quite pretty but it's not like she's ugly, either. He buys her a drink, makes the appropriate small talk and takes her back to the motel. (Kim is thrown out of his mind. He's always had a taste for blondes; this is different, a shock to the system). She wears a tiny silver anklet and smells of Arizona heat. She closes around him hotly and he tells himself he doesn't care. It's just sex. Just sex.
Afterwards, she laughs at him. "You're so sad," she says.
He spends a whole week in that little town before facing up to the fact that he has to move on and, when he goes, he doesn't look back. He still thinks about the girl sometimes, wonders what she's doing.
And then he forgets her and he moves on.
--
(She sends the ring back six months later. He comes home to find the box on the table. He sees the postmark, knows what it means. Hides the box in the attic. Doesn't open it again for three years until Charlie gives it back to him, torn open like Pandora's Box).
--
Most days he screens every call he gets, lets the machine catch it. He feels bad, but he won't answer.
The phone rings.
--
" --you'll be working with most of the time. Ah, this is Terry Lake. She'll be heading up the team with you."
(They shake hands. They smile).
"Pleasure to meet you."
"You too."
(The AD leaves; they burst into laughter. It's not awkward, it's just history and it turns out she was right all along).
--
He picks up the phone; he knows it's his Dad. He knows what he wants. (Your Mom needs to see you. Your Mom's dying). He tries to put it off, over and over again. He doesn't want to go back, doesn't want to have to face all of that. Can't bear the thought of watching his Mom waste away.
The phone rings and he picks it up.
"Come home, Donnie. We need you."