Disclaimer and beta thanks in Part 1.

Thanks to everyone who has left a review so far, even those who said I was evil. (What, just because I shoot Don and then disappear for a few days? Sheesh!) If you haven't reviewed yet, let's get with it! You're running out of opportunities…

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Chapter 13
Saturday, November 26, 2005
10:55 P.M.
Eppes house

The flashing lights from the police cars and the ambulances were casting strangely-colored shadows across everyone's faces. Alan knew that he was tired both because it was so late and because his earlier adrenaline rush had completely collapsed. He had been so tense a few moments ago that it had been extremely difficult to suddenly go limp like that. But he had read the desperation in his son's face, knowing that while he might be perfectly willing to sacrifice himself in the pursuit of terrorists, he wasn't going to be able to risk his father's life so easily.

He was sitting on the swing on the front porch, the same place he had sat countless times before while reading the paper or drinking a cup of coffee, looking out over a lawn and driveway now buzzing with activity. The paramedics had tried to check him out a few minutes ago, but he had protested that he was perfectly all right. So they sent him out of the way while they tended to more urgent matters. He looked across the lawn at the ambulance parked at the curb, its back doors open but its overhead lights off. The stretcher that was laying on the ground behind it carried a body bag, all but the face covered. He watched the red and blue lights play across it for a moment, but he was too far away to see the features clearly. His throat tightened, and he found himself having to look away.

"Mr. Eppes, are you sure you're all right?"

He looked up, startled at the voice. Megan Reeves had sat down next to him, one hand coming to rest on his shoulder. "Yes, I'm fine," he replied brusquely. "I'm not the one who was shot, you know."

She gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I know that. You can go over and see him in a few minutes, once they're done with him."

His eyes flicked over to the body bag again. Two men in suits were standing next to it, neither one familiar, one writing something in a small notebook. He turned his head away. "Thank you."

"We are going to need to take you back to the office to give us a statement about what happened tonight," she said gently.

"I figured that," he replied, rubbing a hand across his face. "It's okay if I talk to my son before that happens, right, Agent Reeves? No one's going to worry that we're trying to get our story straight or something?"

Megan smiled. "Not a problem." She gestured towards the second ambulance, which had backed into the driveway. Don was sitting on the open back of the vehicle while a paramedic bandaged his upper left arm. "He insists that since the bullet went right through his arm, there isn't anything a hospital could do for him that the EMTs can't."

Alan shook his head. "I suppose you tried to talk him out of that foolish idea?"

She spread her hands wide. "My policy is not to argue with the boss. He's got a harder head than a…well, you can probably fill in the blank, Mr. Eppes."

He was surprised to find a chuckle emanating from his mouth. "Yes, I'm sure I could. And please, call me Alan."

She gave him a smile and stood up. "Then it's Megan. Come on, I'll take you to Don."

They hadn't had much of a chance to say anything to each other after the brief gun battle in the house. Don had been too concerned with calling for backup, especially with Andina liable to regain consciousness out front, and Alan was too concerned with the blood spreading across the sleeve of Don's white shirt. He didn't know if his son was going to be angry at him for taking the risk he had, although as far as Alan was concerned, it was what he had to do. He'd seen the slight wavering of Don's outstretched arms as he faltered in the face of Mott's threat. He didn't think Don would have been able to sacrifice a family member any more than he himself would have been able to earlier that night.

Don looked up as they approached, giving only a slight wince as the paramedic wrapped the bandage more tightly around his arm. "Hey, Dad. You okay?"

He swallowed, then nodded. "Better than I have any right to be, I suppose."

"Come on, Don said that you were quite the action hero," Megan teased lightly.

He noticed the glare that Don shot her, and shook his head. "I'm lucky it turned out the way it did," he said quietly, then thought of his words and winced. One man was dead, and another was injured, though apparently only slightly. He still didn't like it that getting shot qualified as only a "slight" injury in Don's book, but that was the way it was, he supposed.

"Yeah, you are." Don's voice was firm as he said, "What did you think you were doing, anyway? The man had a gun to your head and he was about to pull the trigger. Do you know how lucky you are that your movement didn't cause that gun to go off?"

He heard the rising anger in his son's voice, and apparently the other two people present did, too. The paramedic quickly tied off the bandage, and then disappeared into the back of the ambulance. Megan gave him a small pat on the back before melting away herself.

Alan took a deep breath. "Look, Don," he started. "I don't actually know how lucky I am, and I don't want to. Period. I haven't been trained like you. I don't know how to react in situations where I'm being held at gunpoint, because, thank God, it's never happened to me before, and I certainly hope it never does again."

"That makes two of us," Don muttered. Then he said in a stronger voice, "Seriously, Dad. That was a dumb thing to do."

"Don't beat around the bush, just tell me how you feel," Alan said with a raised eyebrow. "Besides, why is it okay for you to play hero and be willing to sacrifice yourself if your father can't do the same thing?"

Don stood up and stepped closer to him. "This is not about you and me," he started in a low tone. "This is not about you being my father. This is about me as an FBI agent telling you that you shouldn't have risked your life like that. Just because it works on TV doesn't mean it works in real life. And besides that, you should've never even opened the front door tonight, not after what I told you earlier." His voice was rising slightly in pitch as he went on, "You're too trusting, Dad. You trust that things will always turn out right in the end, no matter what, and that can be dangerous. That…that naiveté almost got you killed tonight."

"Funny," he replied bitterly. "I thought I'd lost that naiveté a couple of years ago. Right about the time the doctors told us the tumor was inoperable."

Don's face became completely shuttered, and Alan was suddenly ashamed of what he had said. "I'm sorry, Donnie. I'm sorry." He laid a hand on his son's uninjured arm. "I understand what you're saying. It just seemed like the only thing I could do at the time."

After a moment, he answered, "Well, you should have trusted me to think of something," in a quiet tone. "That is why you upped the number of boxes we were supposed to carry, right?"

The corner of his mouth turned up. "Should have known that you would figure that out."

Don gave him a slight smile in response, then stepped forward and raised his arms. Alan returned the hug, being careful not to jostle his injured arm. He closed his eyes as he held on tightly, the images and sounds of the last hour blurring into a chaotic jumble of apprehension and fear. He felt Don pat his back once, then twice, and he reluctantly released him.

"You ready to come downtown with us?" Don asked. "We can wait until tomorrow, if you'd rather."

He looked across the street at the police car with the handcuffed figure in the back seat. "Are there more of them out there?" he asked quietly.

"That's what we've got to find out," his son replied.

Alan gave a decisive nod. "Then I'm coming with you."

Half an hour later, Alan stepped out of the elevator at the FBI offices and followed Megan through the maze of cubicles to her desk. Charlie was sitting there in a swivel chair, and he bounded out of it as soon as he saw Alan, sending the chair rolling back to crash against the desk. "Dad!" he exclaimed before hurrying forward and throwing his arms around him. "Are you okay?" he asked urgently.

"I'm fine, Charlie, I'm fine. And your brother's fine, too." He briefly closed his eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks for their safety. All three of them.

Charlie pulled back and dropped his hands to his sides. "David called and said that something had happened at the house and that you and Don were okay, but that I should come down here. What's going on?"

Before he could answer, the elevator doors dinged across the room, and he turned to see Colby and Don step out. Alan watched Charlie's eyes widen as he took in the blood-stained bandage on his brother's upper arm as he lifted a hand to wave to them. He laid a preemptive hand on his son's shoulder and said with a casual confidence that he would have had no idea how to summon half an hour ago, "He's fine, Charlie, he's fine. Just got winged, that's what he said." When his younger son turned back to face him, face pale, he went on quickly, "That's why he asked David to give you a call to come down here. He didn't want you to come home to find no one there and, well, and a puddle of blood on the floor."

Charlie's dark brown eyes flicked back to Don, walking across the far side of the bullpen, the small red spot standing out sharply against the white of the bandage and his shirt. "But you said he's fine."

"Yes, he is." Alan considered how to break the news to him and decided that straight-out was the best way. "But the guy he shot…He isn't so fine."

Charlie swallowed. "Who? Is he—?"

Alan nodded heavily. Even if the man had been a terrorist, and even if he had been threatening his own life, he still wished the man wasn't dead. Not that he blamed Don; he'd told him to do what he had to, and he firmly believed in his words. But any loss of life was a tragedy, and seeing it happen in front of him, and in his house, had been one of the most difficult parts of the whole night. He wondered incongruously if the FBI could recommend the best way to get blood stains out of a hardwood floor. "He saved my life, Charlie. Your brother killed a man to save my life."

Charlie slowly sat down on the edge of the desk, not taking his eyes off Alan. "I think you'd better tell me everything that happened," he said quietly, but with a hint of steel in his voice that assured Alan he wasn't going to witness another meltdown over an injury of Don's.

"I'm sorry, but that's going to have to wait." Megan spoke quietly from where she'd been standing in the aisle. "We need to talk to Alan as soon as we can in case he has some information that might be useful."

Alan turned to face her. "Can he come along?" he asked, gesturing towards his son. "I'm sure you understand that I don't want to retell this story any more times than I have to, and I think he needs to know."

She regarded him for a moment, her wide brown eyes alert despite the late hour, flickering back and forth from him to Charlie, who had gone into the if-I'm-quiet-no-one-will-notice-me mode he'd perfected in his preteen years. "You're sure?" Megan finally asked. "Sometimes people find it easier to relate what's happened to them if there aren't any family members present."

"Megan, I had one son 'present' an hour ago, and I don't want to hide anything from the other one." Then a thought occurred to him, and he turned to Charlie. "If it's okay with you, that is." Charlie might well prefer an abbreviated version to the full story that the FBI was going to demand Alan give them.

Charlie hesitated, looking up at Megan. "I might still be able to help with the case," he said in a quiet tone that Alan recognized as wanting something more than he was willing to ask. "I should hear what my father and Don have to say."

She gave him a long look before saying, "You could wait in the monitoring room and watch both of them at once."

When Charlie's features relaxed and he nodded, Alan realized that was what he'd been hinting at, and he was amazed at Megan's ability to pick up on it. Then he realized that such psychological acuity was part of her job, and part of why Don spoke so highly of her. "Well," he said briskly, rubbing his hands together, "let's get this over with, shall we?"

Two hours and two cups of coffee later, Alan was feeling a strange cross between wired and exhausted. He'd recounted every detail he could remember from the time the Pasadena police had called his house until the FBI showed up. At one point, he bolted upright in his chair, remembering Stan. Megan had glanced at the mirror along one wall and told him they would check it out. He was greatly reassured ten minutes later when a junior agent poked his head in the room to inform him that Mr. Carter was alive and well and had given him an earful for being awakened in the middle of the night. Alan chuckled and thanked both the agent and Megan.

He tried to remain as dispassionate as he could while talking about the terrorists holding them at gunpoint, but he was frustrated to find his hands shaking when he described how they had used Don to threaten him. Through the plexiglass walls of the interrogation room, he could see Don giving his statement a couple of rooms over, and he swallowed when he caught sight of the red patch on his upper arm, thinking of how much worse it could have been. Megan placed a hand over his and asked if he wanted to take a break. But he could picture Charlie waiting anxiously on the other side of the mirror, and so he shook his head and plowed on.

Megan took careful notes throughout his story, only asking an occasional, "What next?" or "Go on," when he paused. She perked up when he talked about a phone call that Ryan Mott had made while Alan was carrying one of the boxes outside, giving another meaningful glance at the mirror. Alan didn't see how anything he was saying could help them catch the men who were still out there, since they had probably already started looking through the man's cell phone records, but she assured him that any small detail might help.

They did take a break once: after he had finished telling her how it had all ended, with him slumped to the floor and hearing Don's sharp cry as the bullet struck him while he was diving to the ground. Alan had paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts and swallowing back the sudden lump in his throat. Megan must have understood the expression on his face, for she stood up and said, "I think I need a refill," she said, tapping her empty FBI mug against the table. "Do you want some more?"

He shook his head, fidgeting with his clasped hands, and she left the room, propping the door open with a chair. He wasn't surprised when, a few seconds later, Charlie entered the room, his face pale and mouth set in a grim line. He sat down next to Alan and put a hand over his. "You were amazing, Dad," he said quietly.

"That's not what your brother thinks," he scoffed. "He thinks I took too big a risk."

"That's not what I meant." Charlie cleared his throat. "I was watching Don tell his story, you know, next door," and he jerked his thumb towards the mirror. "He was so matter-of-fact about it. I mean, I've seen him give a statement before, and he didn't really treat this any differently. It's part of his job, right? But then you, you're sitting in here and talking the same way that he is. You're so calm, so collected, and meanwhile you're describing how you and Don nearly—" He broke off and dropped his gaze to the tabletop.

"You expect me to be falling apart in here?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Charlie's face was as serious as he had ever seen it. "I would be." When Alan shook his head, he went on, "No, I mean it. I would be falling apart in here talking about it, assuming I hadn't already completely freaked out when someone was holding a gun to my head, or Don's." He took his hand back and nervously drummed his fingers on the table. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You've always been the rock in our family."

The instant teasing reply of not talking about his father like he had rocks in his head died on his lips. "I don't feel like it, Charlie." 'Not when your mom died,' he didn't have to say.

The soulful expression in Charlie's eyes was the same one he wore whenever he was thinking about Margaret Eppes. "Yes, you are, Dad. You're the one we rely on to tell us things are going to be okay. You're the one who knows things are going to be okay."

The echo of Don's words earlier that night caught him by surprise. How did his sons get to know something about him that he didn't even realize himself? Although, he reasoned, if he knew his sons as well as he did, there was no reason to think they hadn't analyzed him as well. "Thank you, Charlie," he said, putting a hand over the one that was still restlessly tapping the tabletop. "That means a lot to me."

Charlie gave an embarrassed grin, and at that moment, Megan pushed the door open. "Are you ready for round two?" she asked with an apologetic smile.

They kept going, Charlie staying in the room this time and occasionally throwing in a question of his own among Megan's probing queries. Alan tried to recall every detail he could, everything the two men had said to them, but he was growing tired in a way that no caffeine was going to be able to counter. He knew Megan could see it, for she told him to hang in there a couple of times, and even suggested he take a short walk around the deserted office. He caught sight of a clock on the wall and was amazed to see that it read 1:13 A.M. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been up so late. He glanced over at the room Don had been in and found it was empty. Maybe he'd already gone home. Then he shook his head. More likely he was out running down some lead from tonight's events, bullet hole in his arm and all.

Even after taking a break, Alan could only last another half hour. When Megan finally closed her notebook and signaled to someone still waiting in the observation room, he gave a long sigh and closed his eyes. He opened them a moment later to see her handing off the notebook to Don and saying, "There's not much, but we can start with the phone call. I'm going to take these two home and then come back and start in on that."

Don nodded. "You okay, Dad?" he asked, stepping into the room.

"I'm fine," Alan replied, his eyes straying to his son's bandaged arm. "You should get some rest, you know."

He waved it off. "I'll be okay. I've got first crack at Andina, but I want to let him sweat a bit first, you know?" His eyes flickered towards Charlie, and Alan understood what he wasn't saying. Don wanted the two of them out of the office before he started in on their suspect. He almost felt sorry for the guy.

Then he remembered the man holding a gun to his son's head, and he hoped Don showed him no mercy at all.

"Megan, you don't have to do that," Charlie was saying. "I drove myself here; I can drive us home."

Don shook his head. "For one thing, you can't exactly go home. It's kind of a crime scene right now, remember?" Charlie winced, and he gave a small, apologetic smile. "So I think it would be best if you stayed at my place tonight. You can fit on the couch, and Dad can have the bed. There's even reasonably clean sheets on it."

Megan spoke up. "And someone needs to escort you there and check it out, just in case." She raised a hand and gave a small wave.

Alan leaned back in his chair, suddenly realizing that this might not all be over. "How long is this going to go on?" he asked quietly. "Are we still in danger?"

"We don't think so," she said reassuringly. "As far as we know, everyone who was involved in the Los Angeles cell has been taken care of, and we're going to carefully leak some information to the press that will make it clear your involvement in the case has ended."

"You can do that?" he asked, surprised.

"You'd be surprised how far a carefully worded news story can go in flushing out the bad guys."

He nodded and slowly rose to his feet. "Thank you," he said to her and to Don. "Thank you for everything."

"I just wish this hadn't happened." Don shook his head, his expression bleak. "I should have known, Dad, I should have had someone on you and Stan…"

"Don't blame yourself," Alan said to him. "You did the best you could in a very tough situation. I'm proud of you."

A slow smile broke across Don's face, though it didn't completely chase away his grim look. "You too, Dad." He turned to Megan. "You take care of these two, okay?"

"Aye aye, sir," she said with a sharp salute. Alan smiled, as he realized she had intended him to do, and followed her and Charlie from the room, briefly clasping Don's good arm as he went by and being pulled into a brief hug in return. "Love you," he whispered in his son's ear.

"You too," Don whispered back. "Go get some rest."

The last thing Alan saw as the elevator doors closed was Don refilling his mug of coffee, gearing himself up for the confrontation ahead.