Disclaimer: I own nothing…
A/N: Okay… lets see what I can do with this…
He had another dream last night.
It was about him again…
Most of his dreams lately had been about him…
He sighed quietly. His forehead was resting on a stack of papers that were lying on his desk. He knew he'd been sitting like that for awhile since his neck was starting to ache.
All these dreams were bringing back memories and guilt…
"Don?" a voice spoke up from the doorway. Whoever it was hit the light switch showering Don with the florescent beams.
He sat up startled and felt his neck crack as the tension he once held released slowly.
"You okay?" the voice asked softly.
"Knock next time, Megan," he said more fiercely than he intended. He didn't like to be caught off guard when he was thinking about him.
She looked taken aback but that didn't stop her from approaching Don. He'd been acting strange like this since they took up a missing person case a few days ago.
She'd been working for Don for almost three months but even then she didn't know much about the FBI agent. Being the curious person she was she'd asked David (who'd known him longer) about what he knew. She'd learned that his mother had died a few years back and that's why he was working in LA instead of back in Quantico, where he had been very successful. He came home when his mother had gotten sick and now stayed to be closer to his father.
Also she learned that before she came there had been another woman on the team who Don had been quite attracted to. Special Agent Terry Lake had left though to try life again with her ex-husband.
But recently she thought that there was something else, something which Don would never talk about, that was bothering him. Maybe something that had to do with someone who went missing or disappeared in his past.
She'd asked David about this too but even then she didn't find out much on the subject. All David knew was something he'd heard as a rumor when he first showed up. He'd heard that when Don was a teenager one of his friends went missing from a park. David wasn't sure if that was a true or not though.
Colby told Megan to just ask Don what was up, but she knew that that conversation wouldn't go over too well. Whenever she tried getting him to talk about his mother he changed topics or managed to get away from it entirely.
He was the type of person who didn't like to deal with certain things until he was alone or when he had a beer in hand.
The "tough guy" persona, Megan called it. Don was the type of guy who always felt that he had to look strong in front of people.
Don started shuffling his papers and slowly opened a manila folder. Clipped to the inside was a photo of the missing person.
It was man in his late forties. He was a physics professor at CalSci University in LA. He went missing from the school's parking lot two days ago and no one knew why.
The theory was that the captors were going to use him to create something. There was no ransom note left behind but a scrap of paper in the professor's office was taped to the black-board.
"Another 'prodigy snatched'. Your turn."
No one but Don knew what it meant.
That's why Don took the case. It wasn't just because the kidnappers were calling him out. It was because…
He knew they were the ones who took him…
He knew…
"Do we know anything else about Larry Fleinhardt?" Don asked nodding to the photo.
"He never married. Doesn't have any kids or any known enemies," Megan said glancing at the folder. "He's been working at CalSci for almost twenty years. A genius in the sciences. Why do you think they took him, Don? To make something?"
"Yes," Don said standing. "I'm almost positive that's the reason."
Don glanced out his door and noticed that everyone had left and the janitors were had emerged to clean up. He seemed even more surprised when he looked at his watch to see that time was approaching half past midnight.
"Why don't you head home, Megan?" he said watching her casually yawn into her fist. "It's late."
"Yea…" she said quietly. "You should head home too. We have to be back here in a few hours you might at least get some form of sleep."
"Get your stuff and we can head out together."
"Okay."
She turned and left the doorway in which she resided in.
Don sighed again and rubbed his eyes. Looking down he spotted another folder which he'd been looking at extensively for the past few days. He opened it once more and put it on top of the missing Fleinhardt's folder. A new picture looked up at him...
Every time he looked at a picture of him his breath caught in his throat.
He was so little…
Large brown eyes stared up at him and the hint of a smile lingered on his lips.
Every time he looked a picture of him an inescapable surge of guilt filled him…
"Hey, Don you ready?"
Twice that night Megan's voice had startled him. He sat up straight and slammed the folder shut breaking eye contact with the boy in the photo. He watched as the photo came unclipped from the profile and drifted to the carpet by Megan's feet.
She was standing in the doorway with her jacket folded over her arm. She looked down and picked it up as Don stood quickly.
"Who's this?" she asked looking at the face of the pale boy.
"No one..." Those two words came out quiet and cautionary.
Don took the photo out of her hand and put it gently back into its rightful file.
"Come on, lets go," he said striding to the elevators as Megan glanced back at the file Don was so eager to keep secret.
A/N: Finally a second chapter. So proud of myself! WOOHOO!
Please review… I want some ideas for this poorly planned fic of mine…
Thanks for all he previous feedback!
TheDudeLordOfFantasy a.k.a. Kathleen