Disclaimer: see chapter 1
Directions: Please make sure that you've read chapter 15 before continuing with this epilogue, since there was apparently some technical problem with the upload last week.
A/N: Thanks a lot for your comments and for following this story. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you're going to enjoy the ending as well. Let me know :)

Epilogue

"Should I start frying them?" Charlie asked with a nod towards the dough balls.

Amita gave them hardly more than a quick side glance before she continued chopping the coriander into small shreds. "Not yet," she replied a little brusquely. "We should wait until everyone's here, they should be served while they're still warm."

"Okay… anything else I can do?"

She shrugged, continuing with the coriander. "No, it's fine."

Charlie sighed and encircled her waist from behind. Amita had hardly talked to him today, and try as he might, he couldn't figure out what he'd done to offend her. He hadn't forgotten her birthday, or their yet-to-come anniversary, not even if he counted the months. He just didn't understand why she was giving him the cold shoulder, so he tried getting to the bottom of this while putting his chin on that proverbially chilled and yet so very pleasantly shaped body part. "Come on, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Amita gave back with an exasperated sigh that seemed a little stressed as she pushed the now shredded coriander out of her way and continued with julienning the ginger. Charlie waited, feeling that there was more to come, and he wasn't wrong. "It's just that I'm not even sure what I'm doing here," she continued as she put her knife away with some force. "If this is a celebration of a case well solved, I have no reason being here, I wasn't part of that, I hardly ever saw you during the past couple of days."

She had turned around to face him, her arms crossed before her chest, so he put his hands on her hips to give his next words more cogency. "You're here as my girlfriend," he explained with a smile that he hoped would be contagious.

It wasn't. She freed herself from his hands and went to the sink to wash hers, even though it didn't look like she was done with the finishing touches of the main dish yet. "Your girlfriend or your personal assistant?" she asked with some bitterness in her voice.

"That's not fair," Charlie defended himself and became aware that he was now starting to lose his good spirits as well. "I never asked you to help with the preparations, you offered."

"So you just chose to do an Indian dish by coincidence," she stated cynically with an angry gesture towards the chole chickpea curry simmering on the stove.

"I was thinking of you!" Charlie exclaimed, remembering that it hadn't been too easy to find a vegetarian dish that the agents might enjoy as well. "I know it's one of your favorites. Besides, I only asked you for the recipe, not to cook it."

Without an answer, she turned back towards the ginger.

"Hey," Charlie said softly, coming up behind her again. He could see that Amita's hands were shaking slightly, but he had to admit, he still didn't understand what was going on here.

"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice and tried to continue cutting the ginger, but her hands were shaking too badly. Then, when she brought one of her hands up to her eyes, Charlie realized that she was starting to cry. He drew his eye-brows together, watching helplessly from the side as she was trying to hide her face from him.

"Come here," he said softly and took her in his arms, still trying to figure out what was happening.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, her voice choked, while she was pressing her face against his shoulder. "I didn't mean to snap at you, it's just... Ever since you started working with your brother, I hardly ever saw you, and then you almost end up being shot, or stabbed to death, and I… I just don't understand why all this should be cause for celebration."

He closed his eyes and felt a pang of a guilty conscience. As he was standing there, breathing in the scent of her hair and feeling her soft body against his, he realized how self-centered he'd behaved. He'd never stopped to think about what kind of impact everything that had happened must have had on Amita, or how it had made her feel. While he, too, still hadn't completely shaken off that scary experience, the fact that in the end, everything had turned out for the best had let him reconcile with the events rather well. Now, however, that he imagined how he would have felt if it had been the other way round, if Amita had found herself in a situation as dangerous as that, he understood that this had to be more upsetting for her than he'd realized. He chided himself for his negligence, for he knew he should have understood sooner what was going on, especially given how often he himself had felt similarly about Don being out in the field.

In an attempt to compensate for his past mistakes, he made sure to hold her close, to convey some feeling of safety with the embrace. Then, he softly whispered into her ear, "I'm sorry, I should have thought about that. But I think you're forgetting the not unimportant fact that I didn't get shot. Or stabbed."

She chuckled a little self-consciously before she wiped the tears from her eyes. "I'm just saying," she argued then, but had to clear her throat before she could go on, "if you continue working with Don, we'll have to do this differently. It's not that I have anything against this consulting work per se, but I just don't want you to put yourself in such risky situations again, and... I mean, I realize I can't really work with you on these cases with all the confidentiality involved, but neither do I want you to shut me out like this anymore. I understand that you can't always tell me everything, but that's the same with Larry, and you still talk to him when something is bothering you. I just want to be the person that you go to when you need to talk about something, or at least one of these persons."

Charlie licked his lips which were suddenly feeling very dry, just like his mouth. Now that Amita had mentioned it, he had to admit that there was some truth about her words. Instead of sharing with her what had been on his mind, as he should have done in a healthy relationship, he'd been shutting her out. It hadn't even been a conscious decision, it wasn't like he didn't trust her, for he did. He just hadn't gotten the hang of this relationship thing yet, at least not with situations that were a bit more complicated than working out what to eat for dinner. But Amita was right, if he wanted to make things work between them, there were some things that he needed to learn. During the last couple of days, however, and especially after his upsetting experience at the zoo, he'd realized that he was willing to do that, that he was willing to make compromises and cut back on his own interests if that was what was needed to make their relationship survive its rocky start and flourish. Most importantly though, he realized they needed to start talking about these things.

"Okay, I see your point," he began before trying to make her concerns disappear, "but first of all, I'm not really a fan of getting myself into risky situations either, so you can trust me that I'll continue trying to avoid those. And secondly, there's no reason for you to worry about me working with Don again."

A frown appeared on her face. "No? Why not?"

He looked at her quizzically, not sure if he understood her question. "Well, this case is over. And I'm pretty sure Don won't want a repetition of that."

"I thought things between you were okay now?"

Charlie's lips twitched to a one-sided grin void of any happiness. "Just because he's forgiven me doesn't mean he wants to spend any more time with me than necessary. If his boss hadn't told him to listen to the NSA and employ me on this case, you really think he would have asked me to?" He shook his head. "If the decision is left to him alone, he'll make sure to keep me as much out of his life as possible, and after what happened at the zoo, he'll make damn sure to keep me from interfering with his job as well."

Even while he was saying the words, a memory from when he'd started consulting on this case was filling his mind, Don holding him back when he'd been about to ride down the elevator, asking him to sort things out. He hadn't been sure what to think of it then, but with everything that had happened since, wasn't it somewhat probable that Don had been serious, that he really wanted to pursue a tighter relationship with his geeky little brother?

Before he had a chance to finish this train of thoughts, the doorbell rang, announcing their first visitor of the evening.

"They're early," Amita noticed with a slightly rattled look on her face, and quickly turned back to the ginger.

"Well, then they'll just have to wait until everything's ready," Charlie said and kissed her softly on the lips.

She put the knife out of her hand again, exchanging it for Charlie's waist, before she pulled her head away. "No," she said and tried to free herself from him, "you need to answer the door, and I need to finish the ginger."

Charlie sighed with some exaggeration while a grin spread out on his face. "Alright. But we'll pick up at exactly this point once they'll have left," he said as he put a kiss on her cheek.

His dad had already answered the door and let Colby in, who was looking around with an unusually timid appearance. "Charlie, hey! Sorry I'm a little early, but Don told me so often not to be late that I guess I overdid it a bit."

"Don't worry about it. Beer?"

A grin laid itself over the timidness. "Sounds good."

"I had better leave now," Larry put in before Charlie could get the beer, adding with an indistinct gesture towards the chess board, "We'll need to finish our game some other time, Alan."

"You're not staying?" Charlie asked with a hint of disappointment.

"Well," Larry started, "I was under the impression that you were about to celebrate the successful end of your investigation, so I don't think it would be appropriate for me to impose on you."

"Nonsense, you're not imposing," Charlie fended off his objection. "You've helped me more on this case than you realize. Besides, Amita and I have made so much food that we can definitely use another eater."

In the end, Larry's protests were futile against both Charlie's and Alan's hospitality, and he gave them up when the doorbell rang again, announcing their next guest.

"David?" Alan guessed while Charlie was going for the door.

"He's not coming," Colby took care of the explanation. "He'd already made plans for tonight with a co-worker of ours, and frankly, he's been taking so long to ask her out that none of us has been trying very hard to change his mind. Seems like he needed the push of getting shot at to take a leap and find himself a little piece of happiness."

In the meantime, Charlie had let Megan in and was taking care of her coat while she greeted the rest of the party. "Professor Fleinhardt!" she finally turned to Larry with something like joyful surprise in her voice. "I wasn't expecting to see you here!"

"Well," Larry replied and cleared his throat, "it's been said that it is the key of finding happiness in life to have low expectations, since that way, it is that much harder to be disappointed."

"Saying that I would have been disappointed if you hadn't been here?" Megan gave back with a sheepish grin.

Larry reddened until the roots of his hair, and Charlie couldn't help but grin as well. Sure, Larry could probably hardly be considered a people person, but he usually seemed more or less at ease in any group. Megan, however, had clearly rattled him.

"Obviously, that's not what I meant," he stammered.

Now taking pity on his friend after all, Charlie inserted himself into the exchange by offering Megan something to drink, and with Harvey's entrance, the spotlight was taken off the startled cosmologist for good.

Since now Don was the only one missing, Charlie and Amita decided on starting to fry the poori after all. As it was, Amita was halfway done with them when Don finally arrived, almost twenty minutes late.

"We were just about to start without you," their dad told him with a stern note of reproach lying underneath his words.

"Yeah, sorry," Don gave back, "I got stuck in traffic."

"Since when is that a good excuse?" Colby complained. "You never let it count with me."

"Hey, careful there on the peanut gallery," Don admonished him with mock sternness. "After all, I was doing this for you. Couldn't let you be the one to arrive last tonight, could I?"

Charlie huffed. "Yeah, right," he said with a grin of disbelief and could tell that none of them was buying Don's excuse.

Don shrugged, a sheepish grin appearing on his face, too. "Well, it was worth a try."

Figuring that with Don's entrance, there was no further need for him to personally entertain his guests, Charlie retreated to the kitchen again to help Amita with the finishing touches of their dinner. Few minutes later, the food was ready to serve and they all sat down at the large dining-room table.

"Oh, wow," was Colby's comment when he'd had some spoons of the curry. "This is really good, Amita."

"Indeed," Don chimed in, before he added to her in a stage-whisper, "It is you who did the cooking, right? I can say it's good without accidentally commending Charlie?"

"Very funny," Charlie gave back, trying not to smile. "I was in charge of the poori."

At Don's questioningly raised eye-brows, indicating the bread, he gave him a nod and waited for his big brother to taste the poori like a gourmet, chewing for a rather long time before he tilted his head and finally disclosed his verdict, "Not immediately deadly."

Charlie couldn't help but give a soft chuckle, and at the same time wondered when Don had last made a joke at his expense. It had been a while, he realized, and the realization was helping him further to be a good sport, because he understood that this was Don's way of letting his guard down and showing him and the world that everything between them was indeed okay now, that they weren't bound to get into a fight every time they set eyes on each other.

"I hate to use this as a conversational transition," Larry piped up then, "but I must say, I'm not entirely clear on how things ended with this terrorist organization. Have you been able to arrest everyone posing a threat to society?"

Don nodded while swallowing down the chunk in his mouth before he explained, "We're done with Life's Matter, so as far as we are concerned, this case is closed. We were able to find ample evidence incriminating all five members that Charlie's network analysis pointed towards, and we were also able to bust half a dozen other members, who all belonged to a local cell of a far vaster network." He glanced at Harvey. "That, however, is all I can tell you, for otherwise Harvey would have to kill me."

"Well, maybe not kill you," Harvey said, "but it is an ongoing investigation."

"Your investigation," Colby added. "I have to say, I won't be sad if we get a couple of smaller and a little more concrete cases in the foreseeable future. You know, more do, less read."

"And they all belonged to Life's Matter?" their dad asked, returning to Don's words.

Don shook his head. "Only the five that were showing in Charlie's analysis. As far as we can tell at this point, they were deployed in Life's Matter in an attempt to recruit new members for their cause and further it by some other means as well, money laundering among others."

Their dad frowned. "That sounds like a rather strange plan."

"Well, it worked," Megan told him. "In the beginning, it was only Pete, Marcy and Naji who joined Life's Matter, where they met Joey and Lee and persuaded them to join their terrorist cell, and with Lee, they gained access to the group's accounts."

Their dad was shaking his head. "Alright, so maybe I am a little old-fashioned, but in our day, there was still a line somewhere between fighting for the environment and let's say government critics on the one hand and harming innocent people on the other."

From the way Larry tilted his head, Charlie was almost sure he was going to object to that, and he was right. "I wouldn't say that radical left-wing attacks are an invention of the modern age, Alan," he pointed out.

"Regardless, I don't get it," Amita joined the discussion. "What makes eco-activists, or anyone for that matter, join an organization that openly stands by such cruel methods?"

"There are many people who think that every means is permissible if only the cause is right," Megan explained. "The trick is to make your cause appealing and important enough to justify, at least to a certain group of people, any course of action, and usually, you do that by addressing the core values of human existence, like freedom, or justice, or safety."

"But that's what I don't get," Amita insisted. "I mean, I think I can see someone growing up in a conflicted region like some countries in the Middle East to turn to a radical group like that. If they never got to know any working society where these concepts exist, I can see someone like that believing that a fight as radical as terrorism is the only way to achieve their goals. But as far as I understand, most of the members of this cell didn't have any previous connection to the Middle East, they grew up in the US, they know what justice and freedom look like."

"They do," Megan went on, "but they all, for some reason or other, lost their trust in our government, and even in the western values as a whole. They found that our societies are more hypocritical than anything else, and that true solidarity can only be found in a different kind of society, one that isn't corrupted yet. They'd hoped to have found that in the societies of the Middle East, where core values like family and honor are very prominent, core values that, in their eyes, have been degenerating in the West. What they were aiming to do was build a new, a better society, and as far as we can tell, they were truly convinced to have found the right way to do that."

"By harming people and inducing fear," Amita finished in a low voice, shaking her head with sorrow.

There was a second of silence before their dad began to speak in an admirable attempt to lighten the mood again – an attempt which, as Charlie realized with some awe, seemed to work out every single time.

"Well," he said, "I think the important thing is that this group didn't succeed in fulfilling its goals and is no longer a threat to our 'deficient society', that, if you ask me, I'm still quite happy to live in. I have to say, I'm glad that this case is over, for believe me, it brought up some rather fierce disagreements in this house."

Charlie felt himself blush at the comment and didn't quite know how to react to that.

"Discussions aren't necessarily a bad thing, they're an important part of coming to see the truth," Don said before he'd figured it out, and Charlie dared to look up at his big brother as he unfolded his diplomatic explanation. "I mean, we were both right and both wrong about this case. Charlie was right about the fact that Life's Matter itself wasn't a terrorist organization, and that the code they were using wasn't designed to hide criminal activities. We were right though about the connection to terrorism within Life's Matter, and we were right about not trusting Marcy."

"So," Alan concluded, letting his gaze shift from Don to Charlie and back, "am I getting this wrong or has working together actually worked out pretty well?"

Charlie gave his brother a quick glance, trying to appraise how he was going to react to that. Don, however, took his time with swallowing before he said rather curtly, "Nope, you're not wrong."

"And that despite some little difficulties in the beginning," Colby threw in while sipping at his glass and casting a look in Charlie's direction that he guessed was supposed to be apologetic.

He felt a smile spread out on his face, feeling a little more at ease now after hearing the agents' assessment of their collaboration. "That's putting it mildly. In terms of stochastics, one could say that given the initial conditions, our successful collaboration was an anomaly inexplicable by any probability measure known to man."

"Whatever you say," Don said dryly, but with a smile playing around his lips as well. "It's probably a small miracle that we've made this work despite your inability to express yourself intelligibly to normal people, not to mention all our other differences."

"You really think the two of you are so different?" Harvey asked, making the whole table look at him.

"You don't?" Charlie asked with some incredulity.

Harvey let his gaze wander around the table, then shrugged. "Well, from what I've seen, I'd say the two of you are pretty much alike."

Charlie raised his eye-brows, but there was no indication that Harvey was joking. On the other hand, Don's tone was also rather sober when he said, "Yeah, you know, I'm actually a math whiz myself, I just don't brag about it the way Charlie does."

Even Harvey had to laugh at that.

"And on the other hand," Colby continued, "Charlie's the only mathematician I know that can kick in a door."

Charlie felt himself blush while he noticed his father's eye-brows go up, and he was glad that Amita instantly turned the focus on Colby by asking, "And exactly how many mathematicians do you know?"

Colby opened his mouth as if to answer, then closed it again and grinned a little sheepishly. "Touché."

Harvey, however, still seemed to be hung up on their father's words from where this conversation had started and not intent on letting the matter go. "I'm still not sure I get it, though," he said into the happy atmosphere, "how come you've never worked with the FBI before?"

All of a sudden, the smiles seemed to fade and Charlie felt all eyes on him, and heat shot to his head. At the same time, he tried telling himself that he didn't have anything to feel embarrassed about or ashamed for. "They never asked," he said with a shrug, but had to realize there was a mumbling quality about his words.

"Well," Harvey continued, "I imagine that's about to change now. You've shown your business-card pretty clearly in this case."

Charlie swallowed and risked a side-glance at Don. He couldn't help it, this conversation was making him feel uncomfortable. "Well, I don't know," he mumbled, keenly aware that Don very much differed from Harvey's assessment about his fitness to consult.

"What, why not?" Colby now inserted himself into the conversation. "I mean –"

"He said 'no', okay?" Don cut him off rather harshly. "Let's leave it at that."

His words were followed by an awkward silence, and Charlie felt his mind racing to figure out how to end it. "Well," he started and cleared his throat, "I guess I'll take those plates to the kitchen then and..." It took a very long half second before his mind had come up with the rescue, "and bring out dessert."

"I'll help you," Amita said while Charlie, with the help of his guests, was piling up the plates.

"You've done more than enough today," his dad held her back before he turned towards Don. "Go and help your brother in the kitchen, will you?"

"Sure," Don said and stood, but kept his gaze downwards at the tableware so that Charlie couldn't assess how annoyed he was at their dad's not very delicate commandeering – something that Charlie feared he might be the one to pay for.

"So, what are we having for dessert?" Don asked when they entered the kitchen and started filling the dish-washer, and Charlie felt himself relax. Don didn't seem particularly annoyed, and with the change of topic, the risk of another argument had lowered significantly.

"Crème brûlée," he replied and began putting in the cutlery.

He saw Don freeze in mid-movement. "Seriously? This is getting a little scary. Or did you forget to tell me you're planning to quit teaching and become a five-star chef?"

Charlie grinned. "Not exactly. But I've always wanted to do some experimenting with a butane torch."

When his words elicited soft laughter from his brother, he felt his own grin broaden. "Should have known."

They fell silent after that, wordlessly filling the dish-washer side by side. Eventually, however, Charlie realized that Don's earlier comment was still bothering him too much as though he could have left it alone.

"Just for the record," he said, but had to clear his throat again, still not sure whether it was wise to broach the subject, "I didn't say 'no'."

"About what?"

"About us working together. I mean, I agree, it wouldn't make sense to have a repetition of that under the circumstances, but we should still stick to the truth."

Don, who'd just closed the dish-washer and turned it on, straightened his back and was facing him with a posture that seemed somehow confrontational. "And what truth exactly are you referring to?"

Charlie bit his lip, then let it out. "Well, that it's you who doesn't want us working together, not me."

"I never said that," Don claimed, making Charlie look at him with surprise. Don never lied, so it was strange that he was doing it now.

"You did, just a minute ago."

"I just said we should drop it, because I could tell the conversation was making you uncomfortable, because I know you don't want to work for us."

Charlie raised his eye-brows. "And you came to that conclusion how?"

"Come on," Don said as though they both knew what he was about to say, "so maybe I'm not really a math whiz, but I still get that you can do much better than this consulting stuff, and I know you're clever enough to realize that our cases tend to get messy, and ugly, especially if you've already been working for the NSA."

Charlie was frowning. "I don't think I follow."

Don sighed. "You know very well that in our line of work, people get hurt, and it's hard to see that."

"Too hard for me to handle?" Charlie asked and had to realize that his tone had become rather challenging.

"I'm not saying that, I'm just saying you can do better than that, without this ugly side and without the risk our job brings with it. You're a freaking genius, you're supposed to be doing something big, and not busy yourself with a code that's so trifling you can crack it in just one afternoon while at the same time running the risk of getting shot or stabbed or burnt to death."

Charlie's frown had become deeper during his brother's words, and he still wasn't sure he was understanding him correctly. "But what you're doing is big. You make the world a safer, a better place, you're making sure that the evil in this world won't take over."

Don was shaking his head. "The world," he repeated with a huff, but didn't elaborate on that. "Buddy, we're just one team in one field office, and if you knew how many cases don't end the way we'd like them to, you'd be talking a lot differently. You're supposed to be doing something bigger, something better."

"Than what, than what you're doing?"

"Well... yeah!"

Charlie looked at him for a long time, but found that Don seemed indeed to be serious. "I don't think so," he eventually said, still thoughtful, but still convinced he was right about this. "So maybe my consulting work doesn't always require me to deepen our mathematical understanding of the world, but it's not like I'd just drop my own research and teaching for that. And even if I did and stuck only to consulting, I'd still be applying mathematics, and that's what I'm supposed to do, what I want to do. And I can't imagine applying it in any better way. I mean, you're saving lives, what could be bigger or more important than that?"

Don was looking back at him, his eyes searching his, and while they were doing that, the frown on his face was slowly smoothing out. "So you're serious about this," he asked eventually, "you'd be willing to consult for the FBI every once in a while? For my team?"

Charlie shrugged, trying to appear casual despite his wildly beating heart. "Sure, if you'll have me."

A smile appeared on Don's face, Charlie could see it, even though Don instantly tried to hide it. "Well, if an NSA approved techie offers his services, who am I to say no? Anyway, after your escapades with them, it's time someone taught you a thing or two about real police work." The smile that had still been there underneath the facade abruptly vanished when he added, "But let me be clear here, we're talking about decryption and this network sort of stuff, not about running around in a zoo with a gun in your hand."

Charlie gave a high-pitched laugh. "Yeah, no problem, I'm pretty sure I've gotten that out of my system."

"Good," Don decided.

For a moment, they just stood there, not knowing what to say. Charlie had to admit, as elated as he felt, there was also some insecurity, because he was still expecting his brother to just burst out saying, 'Fooled you!' and tell him that working together was the dumbest idea anyone had ever had. At the same time, he couldn't help but think that there was something like insecurity in Don's eyes as well, so maybe his brother was thinking about this similarly as himself? In any case, he seemed to have accepted the idea not grudgingly, but actually with a kind of positive attitude, almost gleeful anticipation. So maybe, they could indeed do this, maybe this could actually work.

"Let's get your crème brûlée and go back to the others," Don broke off the moment, clearing his throat. "I'm not sure how much longer Dad can prevent a catastrophe."

Charlie cast him a puzzled look. "What catastrophe?"

"Are you kidding?" Don gave back with a small, incredulous laugh. At his next words, he lowered his voice, making them sound as though they had been taken right out of the movie trailer of Armageddon, "It is the combat of natural forces, intuition and force against cold, hard reason, the FBI versus academia, two worlds that had been kept separated for the sake of the human race have finally come to collide."

Charlie smiled and shrugged, completely unperturbed. "I think Dad can handle that. He's the expert, after all."

- finis -