A/N: This is a pivotal chapter. Read every word, even the e-mail headers that look like gibberish. Important timeline information, among other things. Can't get fanfic to accept actual e-mail addresses, so had to resort to boring old names.
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Chapter 9
FROM: Archie
SUBJECT: No Subject Specified
DATE: June 19, 2006 7:44:32 PDT
TO: Charlie
I never said we couldn't talk.
Tell me about the summer you were 10.
FROM: Charlie
SUBJECT: No Subject Specified
DATE: June 20, 2006 11:15:05 PDT
TO: Archie
You don't get to make all the rules.
My birthday is just before the school year starts, so I'll tell you about the summer I was 9/10. I was going to start high school with Don that year. We had two-year junior highs and a four-year high school here, then. He would be a "normal" 15-year-old freshman. As an adult, I can tell you that he was apprehensive. He was a big deal in junior high. Baseball stud. Chick magnet. Invented the word "swagger". All of that proved to follow him through high school, but he didn't know that it would, yet. He thought he might have to start all over, and this time with a 10-year-old kid brother in the same classes he was in, making him look like an idiot. He was very angry, and only got angrier the closer it came. Actually, he was threatened, and frightened. As an adult, I can see that. But as an about-to-be-10-year-old with an almost terminal case of hero worship, all I knew was that Donnie wouldn't talk to me, would only spend time with me when my parents forced him to...I thought he hated me. Until then, I had never thought of myself as different in a bad sort of way. After that summer, the longest of my life up to that point, I began to think of my brain as a punishment. It made my brother hate me.
Tell me about the first time you saw snow.
FROM: Archie
SUBJECT: No Subject Specified
DATE: June 20, 2006 11:50:12 PDT
TO: Charlie
I make rules. It's what I do. When I make one that you don't like, you need to tell me.
You and Don are so close now. You must have found a way to forgive him.
I grew up in Seattle, so I don't remember the first time I saw snow. But I remember the first "snow day", when we didn't have to go to school. Mostly because my mother's younger brother, who was in high school and living with us at the time, was so excited. He was from Arizona, and he had never seen snow. I was only in third grade, so missing school was not that big a deal, yet. Half of third grade is recess or lunch anyway! But Marty made me play in the snow like it was something new. We built a snowman, and tried to built a fort. We made snow angels. We found ice cream cones in the kitchen and stuffed them full of snow. (It didn't taste all that great.) It continued to snow most of the day, and my mother made us come in and drink hot chocolate and change our clothes twice. We even helped my Dad shovel the sidewalk, and then we did our neighbor's, too. It was the best snow day I ever had.
Tell me when you started to like your brain, again.
FROM: Charlie
SUBJECT: No Subject Specified
DATE: June 21, 2006 3:30:17 PDT
TO: Archie
That sounds backwards. Why can't we make rules together?
I didn't have to forgive Don for anything. We grew up, and I understood him instead.
Besides Don's discomfort with me, I was a frequent target for bullies at school. Even though I was so far ahead of my peers, I still had tutors, so my after-school hours were determined by my "gift" as well - further evidence of punishment. Then, colleges and universities began competing for me while I was still a junior. Our senior year was difficult. My parents were trying to decide which offer to accept, and then whether or not I should go alone, or if one of them should go with me. They didn't argue a lot in front of us, but it's not difficult to tell when my father is angry. My mother was pretty easy to read that way, too. So I went to Princeton still feeling pretty bad about the whole thing. But once I got to that caliber of education, and was surrounded by people who didn't seem phased or threatened by me, but embraced and encouraged my mind...it was wonderful. I could stay in the labs to all hours. I could take as many classes as I wanted. I could tutor students older than myself and no-one thought it was weird. Learning to like my brain again was a process that took years, but Princeton is where it began.
I don't want to talk about my brain, anymore. I am more than my brain.
Tell me how you chose the F.B.I.
FROM: Archie
SUBJECT: No Subject Specified
DATE: June 22, 2006 5:11:47 PDT
TO: Charlie
Was it that simple, that easy, understanding Don?
My senior year of high school was also difficult. I was in love. We dated for two years. He wasn't going to college, and I didn't want to, either. My parents and I fought about it all year. (Try telling two teachers you are done with education. Ever. Especially in high school.) As soon as I turned 18, in March, I married him, so they couldn't make me go. It was a mistake, I knew that right away. He seemed to change when we got married. He became jealous. His plans for after high-school had been grandiose before we got married, but now he didn't want anything more than working on the county road crew and drinking beer the rest of his life. He started to hit me. The first few times, I managed to stay away from my parents until all visible bruising was gone, but the third time he put me in the hospital and they found out. They had him arrested and put me in touch with an abused-spouse group. This is why I know what I did at the koi pond was wrong. No excuses.
Anyway, through the group I met a retired F.B.I. agent. One of the things she had done for the man who eventually almost killed her, was give up her career when they got married. She talked about it a lot. She obviously missed it and made it sound very exciting. Plus, thinking I could be trained to protect myself helped. So I agreed to go to college if I could major in criminal science and then apply to Quantico.
I ask about your brain so much because I'm trying to understand what you have gone through to get where you are, and why erasing a few white boards would upset you so much. I think I understand a little better. Your work often left you alone, and at odds with the people you loved the most. Yet you remained committed to it. It is your first, and strongest love.
The rest of us just need to learn to accept that.
Tell me, if you are still willing to answer my questions, what is the hardest thing you ever had to do? (This doesn't count.)
FROM: Charlie
SUBJECT: No Subject Specified
DATE: June 23, 2006 12:20:7 PDT
TO: Archie
I never said that it was easy. Don and I have both worked hard. It's still hard, sometimes.
Your last e-mail made me angry, and I wasn't going to answer.
But I couldn't sleep last night because when I think about your last question, I fear that you are right.
The hardest thing I ever did was not the months of rehab after my back injury. It was not the aftermath of killing another human being, or the repercussions of being there when a good friend was killed trying to protect me. The hardest thing has not been being shot, and almost dying.
And I know you said this doesn't count, but the hardest thing has not been this separation from you.
The hardest thing I ever did was leave the garage, after my mother died.
The work was my comfort. It was my link to her. It consumed me, like a black widow consumes its mate. And even after I got away, even after Don found a way to pull me from the web it had weaved around me, I continue to dance around the edge of the abyss, because the work is my perfect partner. If I am to dance at all, I must dance with it.
Are you still reading, this time? What is the hardest thing you have ever had to do? (This doesn't count.)
FROM: Archie
SUBJECT: This is the Only thing that counts
DATE: June 27, 2006 9:17:20 PDT
TO: Charlie
The hardest thing I have ever done, is love you.
FROM: Archie
SUBJECT: This is the Only thing that counts
DATE: June 30, 2006 4:04:10 PDT
TO: Charlie
The hardest thing I will ever do, is leaving you.