The arena was pretty packed. Gordon instructed the kids to stay against the back wall until most of the people had gone. He had to confiscate a couple straws from Peter and Karp, who thought it would be funny to hurl spitballs at the people passing by.

He didn't notice anything amiss with Charlie.

"Oh, great. Spazway's spazzing out again."

He didn't really understand what that meant. Upon turning around, he froze. Charlie was on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest; he was covering his ear with his palms, rocking back and forth slightly and though it was greatly strained by the excess noise in the lobby, Gordon could hear the boy mumbling incoherently to himself.

"Charlie?" He barely touched the boy's shoulder when he flinched as if he'd been burned.

Jesse and Connie were at his side in an instant.

"He doesn't like to be touched," Connie told him. She was worried, her eyes betraying her cool and calm demeanor.

"He hasn't done this for a while now," Jesse said quietly. "I thought...I thought he was okay now."

Gordon was feeling rather helpless and beyond confused. He was well aware of the nosy people that kept glancing over at them but he couldn't care less right now. "What's wrong with Charlie?" A sense of impatience took over, even though he'd been working to fix things between him and everybody. "Well?"

"We don't know," Guy said. "He...he just does this sometimes."

"He did it at school once!" Peter cackled like it was amusing.

Connie jumped to her feet. "It's not funny!" She said angrily, giving Peter a shove.

He didn't take too kindly to that. He pushed her back, which got Guy to stand beside her in defense. "What are you getting mad at me for? He's the one acting like a retard."

"Shut up," Gordon ordered. "All of you, shut up." He bent down beside Charlie, glancing back at them. "What do you do any other time?"

"Nothing," Jesse shrugged.

"We just wait until he snaps out of it," Connie frowned.

That was really not helpful at the moment. Gordon didn't want Charlie to be a spectacle for these people. This would have really been a good time to have all the phone numbers of the parents on hand. He could use Casey's guidance on this. She had to have known what to do about this-and why was he not informed about this?

"He didn't want you to know," Connie responded, which made him realize he'd spoken that question out loud. "He thought you would think he's weird or something."

"He's worse than weird," Peter smirked.

Connie's mouth was tight. It looked unusual on a little girl. "He doesn't like crowds," she said. "Or loud noises. It freaks him out."

Charlie whimpered, his hands leaving his ears to smack himself on the side of his head with his palms. Gordon grabbed his hands, only for the boy to let out a shriek. Gordon let go, his eyes wide.

"Now look what you did," Guy glared at him.

"I didn't mean to," Gordon insisted. "I didn't know he'd-"

Had there been clues leading up to this that he ignored? Now that he thought about it, he could remember seeing Charlie cover his ears once and a while, looking at the packed crowd just seconds prior to a game with apprehension. He just assumed it was nerves or something. He didn't think it could be anything more than that.

He was a crappy coach, that was for sure. How did he keep messing up?

"I'm sorry," Gordon shut his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm trying." He took a deep breath and did the only thing he could think to do. "Hey, Charlie," he made sure his voice was soft so as not to further startle him. "I'm right here, okay? Just take a deep breath. That's it, in and out," he was instructing.

Charlie didn't stop right away. But at some point, he was able to latch onto Gordon's words, eyes darting over to him; slowly but surely, he breathed and his hands lowered. Gordon kept it up. He kept murmuring soothing things to distract him from the noise, which had died down since the majority of the people had left.

"It's okay," he repeated. "It's okay. Look, they're gone. See?"

Charlie was still rocking, his hands were now rubbing at his legs. He did as Gordon suggested; he looked and saw that most of the lobby had cleared. His rocking came to a stop a minute or so later, shame coming to his face. "I...I'm sorry."

"No, don't be," Gordon assured him. "It's okay."

"Are you okay, Charlie?" Jesse asked, briefly giving Gordon a stare that clearly conveyed he'd be blaming him if Charlie wasn't.

"Yeah," Charlie whispered.

Gordon stood up. "Alright, you heard him. Now get to the van. Go on." He ushered them along as their voices picked back up again in conversation. Averman turned to him, telling him matter-of-factly,
"You know, it's really not safe for us to be in there without seats or seat belts."

"Shut up, Averman."

Charlie stayed behind, to which Gordon was at his side, giving him a small smile. He lowered his voice. "How about after we drop everyone else off, you and I get some ice cream?"

Charlie didn't look as excited as Gordon had hoped. "You sure you wanna be seen with me?" The boy muttered.

Gordon stopped, causing Charlie to stop as well. He could tell Charlie was pretty embarrassed by what happened. "Charlie-"

"You saw it. Peter's right. I'm a retard."

"You heard that?"

Charlie looked away. "He's said it before..."

"Does that bother you?"

Charlie flushed. "It's not that bad. You know how Peter is."

That wasn't what he asked. "Does it bother you?" He repeated.

"Sort of," Charlie fidgeted.

"Sort of?"

"Well, when Peter says it..." Charlie trailed off and started over, "everyone laughs at me."

"Do you want me to talk to him?" Gordon asked.

"You don't have to," Charlie mumbled.

Gordon put a hand on his shoulder tentatively. When he was reassured that Charlie wasn't going to be upset by the contact, he gave it a slight squeeze. "I want to."

A small smile came onto Charlie's lips.

"Now let's get going so we can get some rocky road, yeah?"

Charlie grinned. "Fudge is better."

"Oh, please-" The two of them walked out of the place, catching up with the rest of them at his van.