Don Eppes, In Three Parts
Title: Don Eppes, In Three Parts
Fandom: Numb3rs
Summary: "Statistically, you're dead now. Do you know what that means?"
Spoilers: General spoilers for S1.
Warning: Minor use of bad language, in case anyone cares
A.N. One more section yet to come. I promise. Chapter titles from Mary Chapin Carpenter's "I Am A Town". Many thanks to my beta tigertrapped and everyone who reviewed last time. Sorry for the delay. More notes at end of chapter.
ii. dust you leave behind
"Statistically, you're dead now."
Don wants to tell him to shut the hell up.
--
When Don was twelve, Charlie disappeared. It wasn't for very long (an hour) and it wasn't all that far (the space between the garage and the shed) but it was enough to get his mother well and truly wound. Between her hysteria and his father's drawn features, Don had been able to slip in between the police and the ever-anxious neighbours and into the garden where he found his little brother, sleeping.
(This was typical, of course; Charlie dozing in the eye of the storm).
Dad had been furious, he remembers, but his mother had just bundled Charlie into her arms and walked off up the stairs. Don made dinner and went to sleep. It wasn't about him; it never really was.
--
He gets the invite to her wedding the morning after another fight with Kim. He's not quite certain how he's supposed to feel, so he sticks it to the fridge with a magnet and leaves.
He doesn't go, of course, just sends a card. Doesn't mention Kim or the flat or the fact that he'll never forget the way she looked in the yellow light of the Laundromat, the scent of freesias in her hair and the sweet taste of contentment on her lips.
He hears about the divorce two years later. Ignores the small part of him that's glad. (The card was still there, stuck to the fridge, aged and colourless, when he took his bags and went home).
--
Charlie's greatest fear is death and all that he can't control. That's the reason, Don suspects, Charlie can't focus on anything more substantial than numbers. It's all very well that his little brother's a genius but he still needs his Mom's hand to cross the road.
When Charlie is thirteen, he's accepted at Princeton and Mom gets ready to go too. Don doesn't say anything but he knows, the way he knows his mother's face, that his parents aren't doing all that well. He keeps his head down, does his work, plays baseball now and then and does his damndest to block out the arguments, the shouting and the stifling quality of the air in their house.
Charlie sleeps through the noise and the trouble, goes about his days the same as ever. Don would never say so, but it was times like these he was ever so slightly jealous of his little brother and the peace he had, all tied up in his own little world with only equations and statistics to weigh down his mind.
--
"Statistically, you're dead now. Do you know what that means?"
And of course he knows, of course he understands. He was lying on the floor with a gun pointed to his head and every second after the shot felt endless and unreal; his breath was caught in his chest, the blood was rushing through his head and his hands felt clammy and stiff.
The shot rang out and Don stopped.
Stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped thinking. Then, suddenly, it was over as quickly as it had begun and Don just wanted nothing more than to forget it had ever happened. Son of bitch had taken his gun, too. Power play, Terry would call it. Head fuck was closer to the mark.
(And here was Charlie, still fumbling over the facts and the figures, trying to find life in the patterns on his blackboard).
--
"You should smile more," she says, pretty in the dawn light.
"What?" (And he's confused, perhaps, or just intrigued by the attention).
"You heard me." She turns in to him, drawing a finger across his jaw. "You should smile more. Your whole face just—" She bites her lips, shy. "You light up when you smile."
There's a pause whilst he toys with the idea before taking a breath and diving in head first. He asks her to marry him; she purrs delightedly, throws her arms around his neck and says yes, yes, of course; yes. She kisses him and loves him, treats him like a man and six months later, he walks out of the door and drives back home, torn between the two lives he has lived.
--
(He sees Charlie and his mind detonates. All he wants to do is get to his brother and push him out of the way.
Please, he begs, of no one in particular, Please, there's so much more I need to explain to him.
He runs to his brother, a sniper's shots ringing in his ears and a prayer resting on the dry palette of his lips).
--
He leaves.
Mom begs him not to go; Dad gives him an impenetrable gaze. Don packs his bags, tries to placate his Mother, tries to explain that it's just one job, that he'll be back as soon as he possibly can. Charlie hides in the other room, peeking through the crack in the doorjamb a little resentful and a little bewildered, all mixed into one.
(Don never tells them why he needs to leave; doesn't tell them how the air in the house presses down in on his sides until he can't possibly breathe. Doesn't tell his mother that all the love in the world couldn't stop him from breaking free from the misery that is his family. Doesn't tell her that he loves her or that he's sorry, just that he has to do this and anyway, it will all be over soon).
The next time Don comes home, his Mother is dying and he wonders how it is that he's always running away from himself, yet never getting further away.
A.N. II: I hope it's clear that this isn't a fic against Charlie; just one in which I try to sort out Don's family issues, of which I'm sure he has a few.