2003
"Let's get back to that puzzle!" Alan insisted and returned to the dining room. Don took a large gulp of beer.
Back at the dining room, Charlie and Margaret talked.
"I remember, when we were in Princeton, and how I'd come home, only to find the kitchen table of our apartment full of of puzzle pieces" the professor commented.
"Putting together puzzles was never the same without you around" Margaret turned to Alan, who just returned from the kitchen. He put his hand over hers.
2005
After a while, Alan got a spare blanket from a hallway closet, and draped it over Charlie
"Thanks" the professor mumbled.
"The last thing your mother wanted to do was hurt you" Alanreminded his youngest caringly.
"Did I remind her of him?" Charlie wrapped the blanket around himself.
"You're unique, Charlie! Your mother realized that better than anyone else!" Alan said; while a part of him felt that, especially when the professor got older, Margaret was reminded of her ex lover, he knew that she realized that Charlie was his own individual.
2003
When Don returned to work the next day, Terry noticed that he seemed troubled; Don's effort towards finishing a report seemed half hearted, and he looked weary, just as he did when his mother was going through chemotherapy.
"You okay?" she asked.
Don made a dismissive wave at the computer. "Fine...it's just this report...I'm not abig fan of paperwork"
"Who is?"She teased.Terry was good at reading people. She wondered if Margaret had a relapse.
Before the profiler could press some more, they were assighned a new case.
That night, as Margaret saw Charlie work on something in the living room, she could not help but worry about he was going to cope, as she remembered how he coped with it thelast time, as well as something that David told her.
"I spentthe last three months of my mother's lifedoing nothing but painting and drawing in the basement. She understood me better than anybody, and I couldn't stand the thought of losing her. I later felt so guilty, and like the worst son in the world...later my dad would tell me that she understood how my mind worked, and never resented me for what I did."
"Oh Charlie..." she whispered sadly.
TBC