Thank you for the reviews! Wow, some of you folks must haunt the Library, LOL, because it hasn't been posted that long. I'll be getting a few chapters up pretty quick, but then it will slow down, so don't worry that you'll be left hanging. It's just that I'm still tweaking a few spots.

Vendetta
By BeckyS
April 2005-2006

The Eppes family and the characters and situations from the TV show "NUMB3RS"
are the property of the Scotts and the creation of Cheryl Heuton and Nick Falacci.
No infringement is intended, and no profit is being made.

No Eppes were permanently harmed in the making of this fic.

Agent Don Eppes was tired but exhilarated. The stake-out had worked; they'd caught one more man up the chain in the group they'd been tracking for six weeks. That there'd been no injuries to his people was a bonus. He unlocked the door to the section of offices where his team was quartered and headed for his desk.

"Don?" said Susan Stendhauser, one of his brother's favorite computer techs. "The AD wants to see you right away."

Don waved at her, but kept going. Merrick had waited this long, he could wait a few minutes more while he debriefed his people so they could all go home. He and David Sinclair had stayed an extra hour at the scene after everyone else to do the mopping up, so he knew Megan, his second and the team's profiler, would have everyone ready.

Once he got to his desk, he slipped out of his jacket and hung it on a hook on the side of his cubicle. He stretched and looked around the office in pleasure. Then he noticed a file on Megan's desk. "Not another case already," he moaned softly, but in spite of himself, he walked over to look at it. The words on the tab caught his eye, "Eppes – CalSci." Something for Charlie? Then why on Megan's desk?

He had just flipped the file open when he heard her voice, "Don, don't—!"

But it was as if her voice came from a distance, because the information on the first page leapt out at him. "Dr. Charles Eppes," he murmured, "deceased." He looked up, blind to anything but the information in his hands, then felt something tugging on the folder.

"Don," he heard vaguely. "Give it to me."

"No," he groaned, his eyes drawn back to the summary on the first page. Blunt trauma to the head . . . pending autopsy, death estimated one hour later. Bruising on forearms, probable defense injuries . . . discovered by students in classroom. His hands flipped automatically through the pages as his eyes took in the pictures. In stark color, standard police photography, maximum lighting so that every detail stood out. They struck him to the heart. Charlie. There was no mistake; it was Charlie. Bloodied, beaten, it was him. Dead. The world telescoped to darkness.

"Colby! Catch him!"

"What the hell—?"

The only thing he could see was his brother, lying broken against an old wooden desk; the only thought he had room for in his mind was death estimated one hour later. Charlie, bleeding his life out onto the floor of his classroom as his body gradually shut down, dying alone.

"Don!"

Someone was making him drink. He swallowed automatically, easing his suddenly parched throat.

He vaguely heard David's voice, swearing. "When I find the ass who left that file out, I'm going to personally string them up by their—"

Don could hardly catch his breath. "Oh, God, Charlie!" he gasped. Megan's voice broke through and he realized she'd been talking to him, pleading with him. He grabbed her arm and forced the words out. "Megan – tell me it's a mistake. Please—"

But he saw it in her face, in her eyes, so expressive like Charlie's – he could read every thought.

"I'm so sorry."

He moaned, then, a soft note of pain ripped from his gut that didn't ease the agony in his heart. "Where is he?" he finally managed to say.

The three members of his team exchanged bewildered looks.

"Where did they take him?"

"The county morgue?" David offered.

"I want – I need to see him."

David shot him a sideways glance. "I don't know if that's such a good idea."

"I – I need to see him, touch—"

"He's not going to start coming to terms with this until he does," Megan explained. "I think we'd better do what he wants."

Don looked up and realized they were in one of the conference rooms. He was in a chair, though he had no memory of how he'd gotten there. Megan was sitting next to him with one hand on his arm, Colby was leaning against the door frame, unbearable sympathy on his face, and David was kneeling in front of him. "David," he whispered. "Please, find out where my brother is."

David gripped Don's hands. "I will. And then we'll take you there."

"Thanks."

David rose and grabbed Colby's arm on his way out. One of them shut the door quietly behind them.

"Don?"

He looked around the room. "White boards. Look at those white boards, Megan. They're Charlie's. Ever since the first time he came in here and explained that crazy theory of his, no matter what else is up on them, to me, these have been his white boards."

"Don't do this to yourself. Don't—"

"Don't what?" he turned on her. "Don't remember my brother? Don't remember the man everyone else saw as just a genius they could use to fix their problems, but was my kind, gentle little brother? The one who bled right along with every murder victim, every woman who was raped and beaten, that little girl who disappeared – who tried so hard to find answers so that no one would hurt any more?"

He shook his head slowly. "Charlie could have lost himself completely in his numbers, but he hurt too much over every victim we had. Other people would have walked away, never helped again, but he couldn't do that. He couldn't turn off how much he cared about people, even if he could never quite figure out how to fit in with them."

"I know," said Megan, and he saw tears running down her face. "I can't believe he's gone, either."

"What happened?" he finally thought to ask her. "Some crazed student he failed out of a class swung a tire iron at his head?"

She shook her head. "We don't know. The police haven't found a weapon. They've questioned every student who was in the class when he was found, but the detective who interviewed them said they were all in shock. He doubts anyone was faking."

David reappeared in the doorway. He hesitated, obviously reluctant to say something.

"Go ahead," Don said.

"They took him to the local morgue for a post, but Merrick pulled some strings, had his body transferred." He glanced at Megan.

Don dragged himself to his feet. "Where?"

"Merrick said he was part of our family, so . . . ."

"Say it. He's—"

"Downstairs."

Somehow that made it easier. Charlie was here, in the place Don considered a second home. He breathed deeply if still with a ragged edge, and started toward the door. The first step was almost a stagger, but he made it, finding his balance in more ways than one. Procedure. When your world fell apart, you leaned on procedure.