Thanks for all the great reviews.

I don't know the Numb3rs characters, just borrowing them

Chapter 4

It was one of the worst black eyes he had ever seen. The inner area red, swollen but not swollen shut. It looked painful but surprisingly it hardly hurt his morning. Charlie was not looking forward to comments that would likely be coming his way and there was no hiding out until it got better. He encountered his dad in the kitchen. "What happened to you?"

"A brick wall." Charlie mumbled as he put some bread in the toaster for his breakfast. There were no appointments this morning since there was an early morning faculty meeting. He poured himself some orange juice and then buttered his toast.

"Do you want to talk about this brick wall? Charlie, I know finals are a stressful time but if that black eye came from a student, you have to report it."

"It wasn't a student. It's not important, please just let it go."

Alan knew Charlie did not intend to tell him about it directly. The trick to handling Charlie was getting him talking and it would come out in the conversation. Now, how to keep him in one spot long enough?

"Charlie how about if I make you some pancakes?"

"Uh, no thanks. I really don't much care for pancakes."

"Since when?"

"Dad, the toast is fine. There's something I wanted to talk to you about."

Once he was seated and his father was looking at him, Charlie said "I'm going away for a while after the semester ends. I don't know how long I'll be gone or exactly what I'll be doing, but I did want to let you know of my plans. I will take care of setting aside an account for the household bills."

"Why now?" asked Alan.

Charlie thought about that for a minute and told his father "I need some time for myself." It really was the long the short of it. He did not have any exact plans, he only had a general idea at this point.

As he biked to school, he again thought about his current life and his future plans. He would need to talk to Larry. Amita was leaving and as much as he cared about her, he knew that there never was anything real between them and her leaving will be the best for her career.

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One look at Don's face and Megan stopped in her tracks. There was a bruise and a busted lip that looked pretty painful. He went to his desk and instead of asking the obvious, she asked if Charlie had any answers for them. "No Charlie will not be working on this case and it doesn't look like he will be working on any cases in the near future."

At her questioning glance, he then told her "I do not want to talk about Charlie."

"Just an observation Don, but you look like you've had a rough night. How about I get you some coffee?"

Don already tried to drink coffee this morning and he would prefer that if he made that attempt again today, that there not be any witnesses to it.

"No, thanks Megan, I'm fine."

"I can see that." Megan said and turned back to her desk.

Charlie had hit Don last night and that had never happened before. It was not that Don had not deserved it before with past incidents where he treated Charlie badly, especially in high school. But Charlie had never, not once raised his hand to him before. Now that he really thought about it, Don could not remember Charlie ever hitting anyone before. 'Not bad for your first time little brother'.

Don had been thinking about Charlie ever since he left the parking lot last night. He had treated Charlie badly during the last case, he had been short with most of the members of his team, but especially so with Charlie.

It was a fact that the man was behind bars and that Charlie was the sole reason they were able to catch him at all, but it just did not seem that it was good enough. Too many children had died while they were on the case and Don felt he and his team were responsible. He knew they had very little to go on but he still should have been able to stop the killer sooner.

He did not purposely blame Charlie. No one had taken any time away from the case during that time. It had been so hard to face each new parent though and admit that they were working on the case but did not have any answers for them. He hated that with his job he had to be the one to notify parents when the bodies were found.

Twenty-two dead children.

Twenty-two children abducted in populated areas.

Nineteen of them while he was in charge of the case.

Nineteen children dead that he should have been able to prevent.

If anyone saw anything at all it was so vague. Medium height male, medium build, light brown hair, the children did not seem to be in distress and nothing sent up red flags to the bystanders who did notice them together. The information was just not good enough. Having the DNA was only good enough to prosecute but first they had to find the killer.

The patterns for where the abductions would take place were hard to pinpoint since it seemed that the killer was focusing on all of the Los Angeles area and then unexpectedly a child was abducted in Riverside.

As it turned out the killer, James Andrews, had a sister in Riverside and was in the area to visit. The children were male and female, no common link other than all being white and all under ten years old. Andrews had no previous record, not so much as a traffic ticket and Don knew it was not Charlie's fault, not his team's fault that so many children had to die before Andrews was caught.

Prior to this case, his relationship with Charlie had been getting stronger. Stronger than it had been since Charlie was pre-school age and able to work junior high math. Don knew that he had to apologize to Charlie and set things right.

Charlie certainly had reasons for his anger. Of all of them, he knew that Charlie worked the hardest, pushed himself the most, taken very little time to sleep and nearly no time to eat. He had lost a shocking amount of weight from his already small frame. Charlie still looked so tired, still too thin, his clothes still baggy. He knew how rough it had been on Charlie in the past during finals and felt guilty that he had somehow lost site of Charlie's life outside of the FBI office.

He needed to talk to Charlie now. Don stopped by Megan's desk. In a low voice, so that he would not be overheard, Don said "Megan, I have to run back out for a while. I'll be back within an hour. Think you could cover for me that long?"

"Sure, no problem. I hope you're able to work out whatever problem you and Charlie are having."

"Thanks, I owe you one." As he was getting on the elevator, he decided that Megan was really was too smart for him to think he could hide something like this.

Don parked as close to Charlie's building as was possible for this time of the day and walked toward Charlie's classroom. There were students filing into the room but Charlie was not there. Walking to the door of Charlie's office he saw that is was opened. Charlie's back was faced toward Don and he heard the professor telling the young girl, "Tomorrow is completely booked up for me but if you can get here at five in the morning, I'll come in early and help you before my other early appointment."

The girl's face took on a look of immediate relief and she had a genuine smile. "Thank you so much Professor Eppes. I will be here and I really appreciate you taking the time to see me then."

She hurried out the door, probably late for her next class and Charlie turned back to his desk to pick up a folder of notes. As he turned back to the door, he stopped short when he saw Don standing there. His brother did not say a word to him, he was just looking at him. Charlie looked so completely worn out. And his eye…

Don could not believe the black eye that he had given his brother. It was not the worst he had seen but it had to hurt. "Charlie, I want to apol..."

Charlie cut him off. "Save it Don. I'm not interested in your apology or your excuses. I'm late for my class." Charlie and notes just brushed past Don and out the door.

For a few minutes, Don just stood rooted to the spot. He knew he deserved that, but it did not make it any easier to accept. Charlie had always been great about letting Don off the hook easy. He knew that now was not the time to talk to his overstressed younger brother and decided that this weekend he would meet with Charlie, they would have a long talk and he would give Charlie his apology and hope that it was accepted. Charlie had asked him to stay away and he would honor that request until the weekend.

As Don was driving back to his office, he called his dad and left a message on his answering machine to let him know he would be unable to make it for dinner tonight after all.

No one on the team dared to mention Don's bruised face or his unusually quiet self today. Early afternoon, he had the FBI fraud 'expert' working on the case. They had done all the interviews and questioning that they could and Don and his team were given a new case. while this one was being worked by the bureau 'expert'.

With the new case, Megan and Colby would be using the Bureau files to do their part of the investigation, while Don and David had to leave that evening and go undercover in Sacramento for a few days. He was told he should be able to come back to LA by Sunday.

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Charlie had been busy for the remainder of the week. There was one student after another in and out of his office. Students and professors alike were scrambling. Charlie knew that this week, he was not the only person on campus who was not getting any rest.

He had not seen his father during that time and he barely had a chance to talk to Larry about his plans after school was finished. They had gotten that chance because both had early morning appointments coming in and met in the teacher lounge.

"You look rather rumpled Charles. Sleep at your desk again?"

"I figured it could add at least an extra hour to how much sleep I would get, but I slept on the couch and not at my desk." Charlie was making some tea. "I already had one student in this morning. He was a little early and ended up being my wake up call. His knocking on my door sent me tumbling to the floor."

"Would that be how you got those interesting colors around your eye, fall on something?"

"No that's from a few days ago. Listen I have to run and meet my next student but I wanted to let you know that after finals are done, I am leaving for a while."

"Good idea Charles, you look as though you need a vacation."