Don stood there, mind racing. He continued to rub Charlie's back but his eyes were roaming around trying to get some information.

Could his father really have slipped away from him? What was worse he hadn't been there when it happened.

Tremors wracked the younger man. Don couldn't wait anymore.

"Charlie what happened?" Charlie didn't answer. "Charlie talk to me."

Charlie closed his eyes and tried to block Don out. Don wasn't going to let Charlie shut down on him. Not after he had been the strong one tonight.

"Charlie!" He pulled Charlie away from him and held him at arms length, looking right in his eyes.

"Please, just tell me. Did he… I mean he's not gone is he?" Don choked on the words.

Charlie rubbed his eyes dry. "No."

Don's body visibly relaxed. "Well then what is it?"

Charlie hesitated but resolved to go on. "The machine, you know the heart monitor it malfunctioned and it flatlined. But it was just the machine. That's what the doctor said. I thought that he was dead Don. And right before I thought he was waking up."

Charlie's vision blurred again.

Don listened sympathetically. He remembered the moment when he knew his mom had slipped away forever. It did nothing to ease his guilt.

"When did this happen?"

Charlie looked down, "about 20 minutes ago."

"Why didn't you call me?"

Charlie looked at Don his anger refueled, "honestly I really didn't think that you would have come. You kind of made it clear earlier that you had more important things to worry about."

His words stung Don. They made him want to hit him. He fought to keep his emotions under control.

"You know perfectly well that's not what I was saying! So don't lay a guilt trip on me Charlie!"

Charlie wasn't backing down, "well you could have fooled me the way you tore out of here."

Don's temperature rose, "I'm warning you Charlie, shut up."

"No! How could you just leave us here? What is the matter with you?"

Don scoffed, "Me? ME? You are the biggest hypocrite. I left for a couple of hours and for a good reason. You left mom hanging for months."

"Don't bring up mom! Not here and not tonight."

"I'm not the one who wanted to start an argument here, little brother."

Charlie threw his hands up in the air, "You are unbelievable! You're just upset that for once you screwed up and you can't blame it on me. Because lets face it when something goes wrong it must be my fault. But let me ask you something, what would I have told dad if he had woken up and found you gone?"

Don knew Charlie was right but hearing it from him made him not care, "I don't know Charlie maybe one of the hundreds of excuses I had to make for you with mom!"

Charlie was fuming now, "I told you not to bring her up. She has nothing to do with this!"

Don was beginning to feel guilty, "Charlie--."

But Charlie was on a roll now all of his past resentments were pouring out of him. "And another thing you can't keep throwing that in my face every time we fight. It's not fair."

"No, the way you behaved was not fair. You abandoned her, while she was dying. You ran away from her."

"Oh come on. By the time she was sick and you came back we hadn't seen eachother in how long? Face it, you've been running away from this family since the day I was born!"

Out of nowhere Don's fist collided with Charlie's face. Charlie stumbled back. His nose was bleeding.

Don stood there, shocked at what he just did. He tried to move towards the younger man but Charlie backed away.

"Charlie I'm so sorry. I didn't mean--."

Charlie looked at him with what he felt was confirmed grief, "see what I mean? You really do hate me."

With that he took off down the hall.

Don's first instinct was to follow him but he decided that they both needed some space.

He sat down in the seat his brother had recently occupied. He stared at the hand that had punched his brother. It was sore. He couldn't believe the force he'd put behind it. More than that he couldn't believe how badly he wanted to do it.

Just to make his brother's poison hurtful words stop. He knew that to a certain extent they were all true but Charlie had blown them out of proportion.

Defeated he hung his head. "Dad please come back to us. We won't survive without you."

Don was speaking about his fragile relationship with Charlie.

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Charlie's initial plan was to go out side until he reached the doors and remembered that the perfect storm was going on out there.

He leaned against the wall by the door then let himself slide to the floor. His nose was still bleeding and throbbing.

His eyes flooded with tears. He told himself that it was because of the pain in his nose but he knew it was more than that.

He should have just kept his mouth shut. He knew that. He knew it when he was saying those things but he was just so angry.

How could Don have hit him? Sure the things Charlie had said were hurtful but that didn't mean that they weren't true. He knew how badly Don wanted him to be normal when they were kids. He just wanted an ordinary family with ordinary problems. But they weren't ordinary people.

Why did it seem like every time he felt like he and Don's relationship was finding its way to solid ground something threw them off track?

Charlie was tired he wanted to sleep. 'Why do things have to happen to our family? Why do we always have to fight?'

The stress was overwhelming. He felt that nothing would ever be right again.

He loved his brother, he had always idolized him that was no secret and with that Don held the ability to hurt him like no one else. He hated that.

'Come on dad. Wake up.' He didn't know how much more of this he could take.

He wanted to yell at Don some more but he was smart enough to know that it wouldn't end well.

Instead he stood up, went through the doors and raced out into the stormy night. Just to spite his brother.

TBC

Authors Note: I'm back. I'm so sorry to leave you guys hanging like that. I'll try to write ch. 8 tonight. Wow! This just poured out of me. I didn't intend to make them fight this bad, but I couldn't stop writing. Rush! BTW did anybody catch that "Ordinary People" line. Get it? Anyone? No? Just me? Stupid? All righty then. R&R please. Thanx buds!