"Come on," Charlie was saying, "there's no point going back to that big old shack by yourself, you may as well come back to mine for a while."
Larry shrugged, scanning the faces in the crowd waiting to greet passengers. "Oh, I see a love-lorn undergraduate come to meet her thesis advisor off the plane."
Charlie dug him in the ribs, but his spirits rose as he watched Amita seeking them out among the throng of people disembarking from the plane. "I don't see Professor Wilson here," he remarked.
"I've told you Charles; there's nothing between myself and Laura Wilson," but the twinkle in his eye and the soft smile on his lips as he said her name belied him.
"Charlie! Larry!" Amita had spotted them. She was a sight for sore eyes, there was no doubt about that. A quick mental calculation told Charlie exactly how many seconds since he had last seen her: that was 1814400 seconds too long in his opinion.
"Hey Amita. What are you doing here? We never said when the plane was coming in."
"You said Tuesday, and seeing as neither of you like night flying I knew you'd be in about now. I've only been waiting for a couple of hours."
Charlie went slightly red as Larry gave him a significant look behind Amita's back, and his voice was slightly hoarse when he said "thanks."
"I hope you brought transport?" Asked Larry.
"Naturally," she said.
Amita's landrover wasn't very large, but they managed to cram both suitcases in the back next to Larry, while Charlie sat in front.
"Larry's coming back to mine," said Charlie, turning round to look at him.
"I'm fine Charles, seriously."
"Well why not Larry? You've just got used to having a bit of company round you."
Eventually the two persuaded him to go to Charlie's house for a few hours. Charlie's swaying argument was that his dad might be persuaded to wash some of Larry's stuff in their machine.
When they pulled in to the front drive some 10 minutes later Mr Eppes came out to meet them.
"How was the flight?" He asked.
"Oh, it was amazing," said Larry. "They couldn't do enough for us – and the food was superb."
"How about you Charlie?"
"Like Larry says, they were pretty good."
"I've got some couscous inside – you'll stay won't you Amita?"
Amita concurred and she stayed downstairs chatting to Alan while Charlie went upstairs to dump his stuff and show Larry where the bathroom was.
"You know," Mr Eppes was saying, "I was really glad Charlie agreed to go to Europe with Larry. I thought it would be good for him to go somewhere and do something by himself – without me, I mean. But it turns out I'm the one who missed him."
"Well that's perfectly natural," said Amita. "You've got used to always having him around."
"Maybe, I just always thought I'd be OK if he went. Reason I was so keen on him going was for him to get used to being away from his Daddy, not the other way round."
"Charlie is far more mature than people imagine," said Amita reflectively. "No offence, but when I first heard by thesis advisor still lived with his dad – well, I've learned I was wrong."
Alan smiled. Larry and Charlie entered the dining room. During dinner, after Europe had been discussed thoroughly, Charlie asked "How's Don?"
Alan exchanged a look with Amita, who knew a little about Don's case before answering, "Not great."
"How d'you mean?" Asked Charlie, "he's not –?"
"His health's fine," said Alan quickly. "It's this case he's working on; something about child-napping. There've been a spate of these child murders recently in the same area of LA. Don has the case, but it isn't going well for some reason. They just can't seem to find anything substantial."
Amita nodded. "Don was saying they had plenty of suspects, but somehow every lead seems to be a dead end."
"So what's wrong with that?" said Charlie, "He has a bad case – everyone has them. I get stuck on a maths problem – occasionally – but it's nothing to worry about."
"Tell that to him," said Amita.
"He's taking it personally Charlie. You can relate to that. You took that P versus NP thing personally, remember. He seems to think his failure to catch the perpetrators is a personal insult." Alan shook his head. "You know the trouble I have when either one of you decides to take failure personally."
Charlie looked as if he resented the remark, and was about to say so, when he realised that there might be more truth in the statement that was optimal. "What about a mathematical angle?" He asked instead.
Amita said, "he gave me a load of statistics and asked me to find anything at all which might help him find the killers, but to be honest I have no clue Charlie. The equations I've run all show that there is no link between the victims. I even managed to turn up a couple of suspects by doing a statistical analysis of child molesters in the area, but Don's checked them out and they're clean. He's been waiting for you to come back to see if you have anything new you can add. But Charlie, I really think that maths can't solve this case."
Charlie raised his eyebrows. "Amita, maths has no limits, you know that. The answer will be in the numbers, we just need to be able to find them."
A/N: I'm really sorry it took me so long update, but I've been away in Manchestor over Christmas and havn't had access to a computer.
