Once the nurse arrived Don could no longer rest. Between her examination of bandages and tampering with machines, he was well and truly awake.

Only when he heard her leave did he open his eyes. Alan's face bore down on him. Worried. It was the same look he'd kept for the last month of Margaret's life. Fear of loss.

Even with a bit of rest it was still hard for Don to speak. The pain had somehow intensified now he was more alert. His whole body ached but at least he could think more clearly. The fog that had smothered his brain was lifting. Still, it didn't bring any new memories with it.

"Been here long?" Don managed to whisper, then licked his dry lips.

As Alan grabbed water, Don studied his father's face. He felt so hopeless. He didn't realise this was the same thought Alan was having. "Morning. No they don't let you stay long and well, your pals at the FBI seem to think they should be the ones to be spending time with you."

Don remembered the handcuff and tried to lift his hand, in case he'd imagined it. He looked up to his father and apologised.

"Sorry."

Alan simply stared back. In a way he agreed that Don should be sorry. Why wasn't he more careful? Why wasn't he invincible? How could he do this to his family? Don's choices affected so much. "You Ok?"

Don simply smiled back as best he could. He shrugged, then grimaced at the pain the action had caused. "Yeah, sure, I will be."

Alan looked over the top of his phantom glasses (they were in his top pocket) at Don. "You better be."

"Chuck?" Don's voice was getting fainter.

"Avoiding the hospital, working on equations."

Don shut his eyes firmly. What had he done? Why was Charlie like this? It wasn't until he opened his eyes he noticed Alan's raised eyebrow.

"Something about proving an FBI agent's innocence."

ooOoo

Three agents and one young genius huddled around a monitor.

"There," Colby pointed to the screen. An image of Don walking back from the FBI breakout kitchen, taking 2 pills played out on the screen.

"Right." Megan jotted this down. "But that matches up with the body language. Headache. Look." Megan rewound the footage to Don rubbing his forehead.

"You know that doesn't tell us anything, even if he didn't do it all the time," Charlie snapped in frustration.

"We're getting there Charlie. Don taking drugs on the footage, the prosecution are gonna jump on that. This is long and slow and we have to do it. Patience Ok." David had just finished when he noticed someone in the doorway.

"He's right you know." Robyn Brooks stood with a folder in her arms.

"Hey Robyn," Megan said, "You're not.."

"No, wouldn't be appropriate but I told Don I'd get as much information as I could, see if I can jog his memory."

"Yeah, the only the thing the Eppes' brothers are addicted to is information huh," David offered.

Charlie just stared at her, mouth open. "OK, well pull up a seat, this is the security video from the last evening Don was in the office."

Robyn decided to remain standing up the back and occasionally shuffled through her own paperwork while they watched.

"I have to say it. Don is really boring. Not even a nose pick man," Colby sighed as he leant back in his chair. "I mean the guy is just doing paperwork. That's it."

"Yeah well they're gonna say he's going over paperwork, concealing his connection to the case. Why else would he send all his team home and do it all himself."

This was too much for Charlie. He slammed his hands on his head and walked away from his chair. "Why is he guilty before proven innocent?"

Megan put her hand on Charlie's arm but no one else responded. They were all looking and rewinding a segment of the tape.

"What's that?" David grabbed the control and tried to zoom in on something.

"An evidence bag?" Megan directed the question towards David. "But what's in it?"

"Can you zoom in further?" Megan didn't have to ask as David had already begun. The ring began to take form on the monitor.

"A ring? Looks like maybe a teenager's huh," Colby was seeking reassurance. Megan gave it with her look.

"Why would the FBI keep evidence like that?" Charlie asked.

"We wouldn't. That's it. That's why Don went to the Peckham's. He was returning evidence, fixing up someone's error." Megan snapped her folders shut and grinned at everyone.

ooOoo

In the darkened room Charlie stared through to his brother's accuser. Colby and David had gone through every crime scene photo they had. Anita Peckham simply wasn't wearing this ring. It wasn't hers according to the evidence.

Megan could only try and get something out of Sarah Peckham, hope it wasn't evidence from another case mixed in to their folders. Without a connection between the ring and the Peckham's, Internal Affairs would be able to blow holes in their reasoning.

"Mrs Peckham I am going to ask you again and you better think very carefully about how respond. You've made serious allegations which the evidence just doesn't support. You are obstructing the course of justice. Add murder to the pot and you are facing some serious time. You better make sure you don't make any false statements. I'm your only chance, this is it. Put the record straight."

Megan paused not only to read Sarah's body language but to let her words sink in.

"Did Agent Eppes come to your place on Tuesday night to return a personal item he believed was your daughter's or yours? A ring?"

Sarah flinched slightly. A faint flicker of the eyelashes, a deep swallow, eyes looking left, thinking carefully about a response. I've got her. Sarah looked straight in to Megan's face with a cold stare.

"No."

No one heard but Charlie swore out loud from the darkness.

ooOoo

"Hey Charlie, you Ok?"

Amita gingerly moved through the garage, not knowing what to expect with Charlie. He didn't stop writing on his blackboard or acknowledge Amita until his equation was finished.

"Hey Amita. Great. I could use your help."

Amita was taken by surprise. She didn't expect this at the best of times lately, but now…now things were different. Don was in hospital, in trouble and with Charlie's track record, well. In a way she felt guilty she didn't think he'd be coping.

"Sure, with what?"

"I'm trying to analyse these relationships." He tapped some equations on the board.

"Where's your data?"

"Here. I don't have enough though."

"No kidding. What's this?"

"Motivation. A ring, evidence, but I just don't have enough data to connect it to a workable equation."

"And this is for?"

"The night Don disappeared. He can't remember, I had to leave it as a variable. I can only go by the evidence being used against him to work out what happened that night. I've gone back to the first place people should have looked, when they didn't know he was missing, didn't know to look."

"Aren't you making a big assumption here?"

"What?"

"That this started the night he disappeared."

Amita was right. God, that's why he needed her. Smart in a way he never would be. He was trapped by his own genius in a way. Amita, she was treated as smart, but not a genius. She had the luxury of being able to exist in the normal population without getting noticed and being able to notice things he never could. She understood people better than he did. She could read them from a perspective he never could.

Charlie rushed to the blackboard and rubbed out a few equations. Rubbing his chalky hands through his unkempt hair he stood thinking and staring at Amita.

"The case. It was never closed. I have to go back through the whole case. Where it started." He then had a thought and looked at Amita, a sad look creeping into his features. "Don missed something?" Don rarely made mistakes, it was unfair that when he did it had nearly cost him his life.

At this moment Alan snuck his head around the corner and was about to ask Charlie why he hadn't visited his brother since last night. He didn't get the chance.

"I need to see Don."

Well that went better than expected.