To India, Away! Part Two - A Numb3rs FanFiction Attepmt

A/N: Because of the landslide of reviewers asking for another part, I give you the second chapter of the story. It was almost annoying - I had everything I wanted to say in my head, and when I wrote it, it came out rather... dull and unexciting.Especially the response...But, to make it up to you,I plan on having a third part: Amita's return from India, and that will be the big shazam. This is dedicated to Margaret.

He was puttering back and forth between two chalkboards in the garage, seemingly quite oblivious to everything around him.

"What is wrong with this equation? Everything seems to be in order, except it's not computing the way that…" Trailing off slowly, Charlie Eppes let his eyes quickly dart over the dusty white symbols covering the green of the boards pinned to the walls.

"AHA! It's the natural log, not the common log – how could I miss something so simple?" Furiously erasing a small part of the problem, he scratched log(e)17xin the place of what was previously there. (A/N: I actually don't know if this is a plausible part of any math equation, I'm just now learning logarithms in class.)

"Maybe you missed it because you've been in here for hours, slaving away like a madman on a mission." A soft low voice nearly had Charlie jump out of his skin – or at least a few inches off the floor. As the chalk rolled across the cement below, Charlie grasped his chest and took a deep breath.

"Dad – cripes, don't do that! I didn't even hear you getting close. And I am on a mission, of sorts… I'm preparing for an extra discourse I'm giving this coming Monday." Charlie said, a bit defensively.

"You wouldn't hear me; your head is so far into the problem. Now you've got another new discourse? They're going to run you too thin at CalSci if they're not careful. I brought you a sandwich, its way past lunch. I also brought you the mail." Alan placed the plate and the small packet of letters on a nearby table.

"Thanks, just what I need are more bills." Charlie laughed sardonically as he walked over to the table in the corner and plopped into one of the chairs.

"Hey, you're the one who decided you wanted to buy this old place." Alan, too, settled into an old rickety chair.

"You're the one who was insane enough to put it up on the market. I practically had no choice but to – hey, what's this?" Charlie broke of his rejoinder as he pulled one letter in particular out of the pile, looking curiously at the return address scribbled in the top-left corner.

"Dad, look at where this is from." Charlie passed the letter off to his father.

Pulling out his glasses, Alan glanced at the envelope. It looked just as any other letter should, but as his eyes adjusted to the light and the words grew clearer, he understood Charlie's reaction to it. "Wow Charlie… this is from Delhi, India. That's the capital."

"Yeah, I know." Charlie's foot started tapping at the floor impatiently, and he pondered the letter quite energetically.

"You know what this means then, of course."

"Amita. She's gotten to her family's house. And she's decided to write to us." Charlie continued to think… why Amita would write to their family so soon, Charlie didn't know. Was India not what she expected it to be? She can't have been there too long; she arrived a couple of days ago, and she called to let somebody know. Charlie thought she sounded a bit odd over the phone, but he assumed it was because she was tired from the flight and of the odd time she had called (he was aroused from his sleep at quite the ungodly hour).

"Uh, Charlie, she didn't write to us. She wrote to you. Just you. Look at the address again." Alan passed the letter back, while Charlie took it gently in his hands, flipping it over and passing his index finger under the words as he read it.

Charlie Eppes was written in Amita's flowing handwriting across the first line. It then continued throughout the rest of the address, ending in his area code. It didn't say anything about Charlie and Alan, or The Eppes Family. Just Charlie. He found this very odd.

"Huh – that's weird, isn't it?"

Alan mumbled something and got up, stretching.

"What was that?" Charlie asked.

"I dunno Charlie; I'm just going to go back in the house so you can read your letter in peace. Tell me if Amita says hi or anything important." He seemed almost miffed he didn't get a share in the letter from across the world, yet almost, could one think it, pleased? He then made his way out of the garage and back towards the house.

Charlie, a bit too befuddled with his father's response, rose from the table as well, splitting the lip of the envelope open. Removing the letter, which seemed to be a couple of pages thick, he saw a small medallion fall out and caught it before it could hit the floor. Hanging from a thin golden chain, it was a round disk, with an elephant, trunk aloft, imprinted into the metal. "That was nice of her to send."

Unfolding the paper, he made his way out to the backyard, stepping lightly over the stone walkway and making his way for the koi pond, where the light was shining brightly and he could read the letter properly. Dropping unceremoniously to the grassy earth below him, Charlie dipped his fingers into the water, the chill sending a shiver down his spine, while one of the curious fish to a nibble at one of his fingertips. Laughing, he shook off the odd feeling and laid back, beginning to read what Amita had sent him.

Dear Charlie,

I know this is going to sound stupid, but I already miss home, especially all the people. Guess where I am? You probably won't believe me, but it's just the first plane. We've only just taken off from the airport about, hm… less than an hour ago? Los Angeles already seems thousands of miles away to me. This could just be due to the fact that I'm not really a lover of flight, or the fact that Grandmother's snores aren't the most companionable sound (but don't tell her I said that!). Hopefully I'll be able to fall asleep soon enough and just make my trip seem quicker than it really is. I do, however, have the horrible knowledge that I will be extremely jetlagged whether I can fall asleep or not, which doesn't help me, as I was already tired as could be when I awoke this morning.

But you probably don't care at all about that, do you? I must sound rather stupid, yet it appears to me I cannot help but be this way, as I have very little else to tell you as of yet. However, I can tell you that I truly am looking forward to this trip, though I deeply miss you. And, erm, everyone else, of course.

Oh, I might as well get on and say it. There really isn't anything else stopping me except my own self. I have to say, my self control is practically fit to burst any moment. I might look controlled, but it's a façade, I'll tell you that much.

Charlie, I have a confession to make. I can't keep this bottled up inside anymore. It's going to sound ludicrously idiotic for me to tell you this in a letter, but I've sworn to myself I'd be honest, and that's a promise I intend to keep.

I know, as well as you do, that we are anything but normal. We are peers, we are young, we are students, we are teachers (you obviously more of a teacher than I), and we are people striving for knowledge. We are more than that though, we are dedicated friends. And as friends, we have a complex relationship built upon hundreds of practically undeterminable variables that have been changed time and time again. But, as people, we have evolved, and this evolution has sparked a change in us. Charlie… I think maybe, it changed our friendship.

Changed it for the better, I have to hope. But sometimes I'm not sure. We've certainly had our share of harmless encounters; certainly we have both noticed a bit of shameless flirting or jest from the other – at least, I thought I had noticed it. However, sometimes I get confused about what's going on, like our, let me be blunt, disastrous dinner all that while ago. It sort of left me doubting whether we had evolved as far as I had thought.

I can always miscalculate things, make a mistake. And while I can admit to making a mistake, I don't think I made a mistake when I stepped over the line. I'm assuming you remember what I did back in your office a few weeks ago. That kiss I gave you then was no mistake, and I'm not going to claim I don't know what came over me, or that it just happened out of the blue, because I don't think it did. And I promised myself I'd be honest about all of this.

Charlie, I've given this a lot of thought, and well, I think I almost had a right to give you that kiss. It might have been out of your comfort zone, and it might have startled you – heaven knows your face had quite the shocked expression afterwards. I might say I know it was no mistake, but that still doesn't mean I know exactly why, because I really don't. I could say it was because you gave me excellent advice about what I should do about Santi and what I should do about my confusion (which you undoubtedly did), but I don't think that was the whole reason why. I think it was something deeper than that.

I would hate to put anything into this letter that might sound foolish, unconcerned, rash or even borderline risqué (A/N: thank you reennie5 for this particular adjective…) but Charlie, to put it as bluntly as I possibly can: I think we might have a connection, moreover, a relationship, that just might be gradually slipping into romance. I'm going to just out and out say it, because I can't just keep being Amita the student, Amita the consultant, Amita the friend. Honestly? I'm Amita, the one who just wants to tell you that… I like you Charlie.

No, I didn't write this letter to tell you how much I missed "everyone". No, I didn't write this letter because I was already homesick. No, I didn't even write this letter because Grandma's snoring was keeping me awake. I did it because I missed someone, because I was slightly airsick, and because Grandma's snoring is just a little grating on one's nerves. I did it because I knew that eventually everything would come out. And sometimes, it's easier to write it all down then say it out loud. You know it's easier to write an equation than to explain it. You know it's easier to solve something in your head than talk it out. I wrote this letter because I couldn't keep lying to myself; I needed solid proof I could tell the truth. I really don't know if I'll send this once I Delhi. I almost doubt myself to.

Charlie, this isn't a love letter, this isn't some random proclamation of my undying devotion to you. It's some paper, with my words, that just wants to say that I feel something towards you. And it's not bad, but it's certainly been bugging me a lot lately. I don't want to keep feeling this if you don't feel it too. I don't want to keep feeling this if I know, deep down inside, you probably haven't even read this far into the letter and you've crumpled it up and thrown it away. I don't want to keep feeling this, if the moment I get back to California you're going to turn away from me in disgust. I don't want to keep feeling this if you're going to just take this and show Don and Alan and Larry and have a good laugh at my expense (please, please, if anything – don't do that. I'll have to murder you, and you're brother works in the FBI.)

And suddenly I've realized exactly how corny I sound. I've realized exactly how vulnerable I am now that I've written this. And I might just take all this paper and rip it up into shreds, toss it in a garbage can, never again to see the light of day. Yet somehow I doubt myself, again. Now that I've went and been honest to myself, don't I have the obligation to be true to you as well?

So here's the deal – soon enough I'll find myself thousands of miles away, across an ocean, across continents, in a place where I don't speak the language, don't know the customs, and barely know my own family. I'll go to a Post Office, buy a large number of stamps, and mark my Great Aunt's house as the address on the label, in case it gets lost in the mail. I'll hope beyond reasonable hope that somehow my letter gets "accidentally" destroyed, yet somewhere in the back of my mind I know I would hate if it did. I'll then relax and enjoy my stay, putting all thoughts of this letter far, far away. If I get no response, I'll never have to know if you got it or not until I get back. If I do get a response, I can only hope it is not as long winded as this, because if you're hand is anything like mine, it would be aching by this point.

I have found I can't really write my more, seeing as yes, my hand is aching, the sun is really bright up here, and it's just about time for a rather long nap. I won't tell you exactly how many times I crumpled up this letter, but let's just say it's gone through several revisions so far. (And I daresay the actual number would make you laugh.)

Sincerely,

Amita

PS. When I got here, I found this really beautiful elephant charm, which supposedly means good luck, at a little vendor shop. I figured, who knows? I might need some luck between now and then – but then I thought, what about Charlie? What if he has a case to work on? I suspect you might need it more than me, if something really bad comes through town.

Charlie sat up, his body a bit fidgety. Was he to believe everything he had just read? Was Amita really being as honest as she said? Standing up, Charlie paced back and forth in front of the koi pond, eyes darting over a line here, a line there, soaking up the meaning.

Not knowing what else to do, Charlie went back into the garage, seeking the solace the cooler, dimmer room offered to him. Sitting back at the table where he had first found the letter, shuffled in with all the other mail which still was splayed out across the solid surface, he found a sheet of paper and nervously wrote a reply.

Amita –

Thanks a lot for the elephant pendant. It does bring luck, of a curious kind. As your advice states, I won't make this letter as rambling as yours, but I have to say, I'll be looking forward to when you get home. "We" miss you too.

Charlie sealed the letter in an envelope and wrote a foreign address on the label, with Amtia's name instead of her Great Aunt's. He then settled back in the chair, very, very confused.

The only realcognativeresponse that came to his head, that made any sense at all, was that maybe, just maybe – Amita was right.

Charlie walked into the house, stopping in the kitchen when he bumped into Alan. Flustered, Charlie said the first thing that came to his mind, both letters still tight in his grasp. He had already put the medallion in his pocket.

"Amita had a lot to say – she's excited about India and misses everyone. Basically, she says hi, and she'll be back soon."