Yay! Another appearance by Don!

Chapter 7

Don closed his eyes and squeezed his temples for the fifth time in an hour. He craned his neck trying to see if he, in the past thirty minutes of sitting there, had closed the gap of one hundred yards to his exit. I know I'm not supposed to do this but… Don thought as he flipped on his lights and siren and speed to the exit and the rest of the way to Charlie's house. Pulling into the driveway, Don sighed with relief. A good home cooked meal and not having to think about work. I have the day off tomorrow, maybe I'll spend the night or something. Don smiled as he got out of the car and up to the door. He was looking forward to a calm night.

"Dad, Charlie" Don paused and then added "Amita"

"In the kitchen Don" Alan answered. Don kicked off his shoes and walked into the kitchen expecting to see all three inhabitants but instead was only met by his father

"Where is everyone?" Don asked standing beside his father deeply breathing in the smell of the homemade tomato sauce

"Charlie's upstairs working on…something and Amita is in the garden"

"She's not helping him?"

"Apparently not. I think they may have fought. She came home after helping a few underclassmen with math and asked where Charlie was. I told her he was in the solarium. She went upstairs, I heard a door slam a few moments later and she stormed outside. Figured I leave her alone for a little while"

"I'm going to go talk to her" Don said walking towards the door

"I don't know Don. I think you should leaver her" Alan said pausing his stirring for a moment

"Can't. I'm sure she doesn't want to eat out there, because frankly she lives here too, and if they did indeed have a fight the two of them sitting at the dinner table not talking is going to be too tension filled"

"You're right. Just don't push it" Alan said quietly

"I won't. Remember I'm trained in interrogation. I know when it's too much" Don answered speaking to his father over his shoulder, opening the door and walking onto the deck. Don glanced around looking for Amita and finally spotted her in the front the koi pond. As Don approached her he heard her crying "Amita?" Don called out softly

"Don!" Amita answered shifting to face him while quickly swiping away her tears "Hi" Amita added feeling slightly more composed

"Hi. Now, I know the koi are pretty but is there a reason you're observing them at night?" Don asked sitting down next to her choosing not to acknowledge her crying

"Oh its stupid really" Amita said breathing deeper trying not to continue her crying

"If it made you cry, it was important to you. What happened?" Don asked softly, reaching out and taking Amita's hand

"It really is silly. I came home from helping some students and I went upstairs to talk to Charlie" Amita paused and closed her eyes willing the tears to not fall again "I walked in and I said 'hey sweetie' and he just grunted. That's when I looked around and saw all the boards set up and written on. I asked him what he was working on. He said that he had come up with a good idea for an article and that it had to be done by the next issue. The magazine he's talking about is The Mathematical Association of America"

"I feel really slow but I don't-" Don started not understanding why writing an article for this specific magazine was causing her pain

"I'm sorry, I didn't explain. The Mathematical Association of America's article deadline for the next issue in two weeks"

"Wow. And he wants to get it in by then? I've seen Charlie write articles for magazines before and they took him a lot longer then two weeks. Think he's going to be able to do it?"

"I didn't get a good look at what he was doing. I wanted to confirm that the deadline was in two weeks and he snapped and glared at me saying 'Yes which is why I need to work'. He's only snapped at me a handful times all of which were at extremely bad times and he apologized right afterwards. Tonight he seemed to just like hate me" Amita let a few tears slip before anger clouded her eyes, not at Charlie but at herself for letting such a small thing get her so upset

"Amita-" Don called to her scooting closer with his arms outstretched. Amita looked at him a the flood gates broke. I'm going to have to kill Charlie after dinner, Don thought holding the sobbing Amita in his arms

Yay! New season of numb3rs! Did anyone catch that comment Amita made about Charlie being oblivious to womanly hints? I loved it! Sry this chapter took so long, I'll try to work faster