A/N Thank you for reading!

Mistaken Part Two

The Aftermath 3/5

Don walked along the CalSci steam tunnels. They seemed far longer than he remembered them. The hot and damp air stole his breath but Don trudged on. He had a job to do and so he continued through the small tunnels. Somehow, they became smaller the longer he walked.

Suddenly, he heard voices. At first they sounded small and tiny. Tilting his head, he tried to place them. But they seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Don couldn't understand what they were saying. With part dread and part curiosity, he marched on.

The air became so sticky, Don had to pause to take a deep breath. Sweat was running down his back and his face seemed to glow from the heat.

Suddenly, the distant voices sharped and Don could clearly understand them. The contrast was so startling, Don stumbled and had to lean against the wall.

"He wanted to be the boss, but couldn't even free himself."

"Yeah, did you see that? Two small students kidnapped him."

"How could he drink drugged coffee? Seriously, a real agent would have tasted the drug."

"Of course. But maybe Agent Eppes isn't a real agent. Just a make-believe one."

Don heard the voices and he listened to the words. In the dark tunnel he couldn't see any faces, but he also didn't want to see them. Maybe it wasn't words but knives that were rammed into his body. It certainly felt like that and Don started to pant and -

Gasping for air, Don snapped awake, jumping out of the bed. His breaths came fast as if he had run a marathon. Unable to stand the darkness, Don switched on every light he could fine but it was still too dark. For days, he had wished that Robin would go home and leave him alone but now that he was alone he wished her back. At least her presence would have helped to calm down his racing heart.

His clothes clung to his skin and reminded him of the heat in the tunnels. Without further thoughts, he stalked into the bathroom, ripped off his clothes and threw them on the floor before he went into the shower. Adjusting the water to as cold as he could take, Don let the coldness wash away the memories and words of his dreams. As he watched the water vanishing in the drain, he wished he could follow the water drops.

No matter the hour, Don would go running. He needed to.

Alan took a deep breath and hesitated shortly but then raised his hand to rap his knuckles against Millie's door. For days, he had agonized over it, but a visit in her office at CalSci seemed like a good place to start, on neutral ground.

"Come in."

With no way back now, Alan pushed the door open and entered. He held up a small bag. "Peace offerings." The smell from the bag wafted through the room, revealing its delicious contents.

"Alan?" Millie leaped up from her chair, her work on her laptop forgotten. Pulling down her reading glasses, she hurried over to Alan. "I'm so glad you're here and I'm so sorry for what I did. I should have never said anything. It's my job to deal with the federal government and Don's agents are just doing their job." She stood up. "I mean this time they are really working overtime and I haven't counted how often I heard the threat about being cut off from federal funding in the last weeks, but I knew that when I took the job. It was more peaceful in the Antarctica. Maybe I should have stayed," she rambled on. "Oh, I'm sorry, I always talk too much if I'm nervous."

Alan dared a tentative smile and put down the bag. "One, Millie, I am not here on behalf of Don. You have to talk to him yourself. But I didn't want to continue ignoring your messages anymore. So, I brought peace offerings."

"But you don't need to bring peace offerings. I'm the one who needs to apologize and ..." Millie trailed off. Instead of continuing, she opened the bag and pulled out a cookie box. She grabbed one and took a small bite. "Oh, these are delicious. Where did you buy them?" Alan opened his mouth to explain as Millie cut in again. "Oh, right we were talking about peace offerings and that you don't need one."

Alan smirked. No surprise, that Amita and Charlie found it sometimes difficult to deal with her. "Larry said that young people are allowed to act foolish but with age should come wisdom, so I took a step back and evaluated my own reaction."

Millie's chewing slowed down.

"And I realized that I'm not only worried about my boys and furious about what happened but that I'm also angry," Alan paused, "angry at you."

Millie swallowed hard. "Alan, I -"

Holding up his hand, Alan tried to finish his little speech. "I know that I should be more furious with the three, this Silar, Cruz and Dillons, because they hurt my boy. But I'm used to the knowledge that there are bad people out there who hurt Don." He paused. Getting used to the hurt and pain and always expecting a visit from mournful agents was wrong on many levels. Yet, Alan had to acknowledge that this had happened. And now he also had to start to get used to this thought in regard to Charlie. At least Charlie should have been safe on campus. He should have been safe! Alan had to fight for his composure before he raised his head and stared at Millie who watched him knowingly. "But that you had known somebody took my boy, no matter if it had been Don or Charlie and didn't do something right away, made me more angry than what the students had done. Because you are my friend, somebody I thought I knew." Alan wrung his hands. "And your request didn't help."

"I'm really sorry," Millie pushed the words in.

"I got that, you sent enough messages, cards and flowers. My house had never been so bright and full of flowers," Alan said allowing a little humor in his voice. "But I needed to make a decision, whether I could forgive you. To forgive that you hesitated to name a name, to give up one of the people who had kidnapped my son -"

"Alan," Millie interrupted him after all. "If I had known that it was so serious, I would have acted right away, I just thought that maybe Charlie had his own opinion about what he wanted to do and I didn't want to do something that I couldn't take back before talking to ..." She trailed off. "Oh shoot, I was afraid that it was exactly what it seemed to be and I didn't know what to do. So," Millie said and swallowed hard, "Can you forgive me?"

Alan hesitated. It still seemed too fresh, but he had reached a decision. Silently, he pointed to the table with the cookie box. "Peace offerings. Somebody has to start to work on the peace, it may as well be us." Or like Larry had said - with age should come wisdom and Alan didn't want to spend the rest of his life, the few years he had left, being angry.

Millie offered him a bright and relieved smile. Then she took another cookie. "I was truly shocked," she said with a full mouth. "I mean, we have so many things here. Workshops, discussion, everybody is allowed to bring themselves in and this shouldn't be a place to chose and end up using violence."

"Violence always happens, if you don't find an outlet for your anger."

"But we offer our students a lot. We offer them the world. The network they can build here, the knowledge - it is enough to change the world."

"They are young. While you're young, time has a different meaning. There's only the present. And right now, they can't change the world. Now, the world continues on its way without listening to them."

"I have yet to make somebody listen," Millie concluded. "I mean, I can force somebody to hear my words, but to listen required a certain open-mindedness to allow an exchange of arguments".

Alan also grabbed a cookie because they really were delicious. Maybe tasty food really helped to have a conversation like that. He should try it more often.

"I guess, I also never really listened. I thought I was prepared for everything. But do you know what? This stops now. I'm going to listen, to really listen. Lately, I've failed often enough. I failed Serena and I failed the Eppes men. I have a lot to make for."

"And?" Alan asked wearily.

"I'm starting with you. Tell me, how are you really? How is Charlie and how is Don? No the g-man," Millie clarified, "but your son."

"Well, both of my sons are hurting and angry and trying to find peace that seems to be so elusive. And I don't know how to help them. Oh, and my past is catching up with me. And you?"

"Three of my students turned out to be ecoterrorists, if I were to believe the FBI. They wanted to abduct one of my professors and mocked with their actions everything this university is standing for. And I don't know how to undo the damage."

Both grabbed a cookie and knocked it slightly against the other as if they would click glasses. "Cheers!"

"Cheers!"

Sometimes there was no solution, only shared pain.

"Hey Don, do you have a minute?" David asked.

Don glanced up from the report he was reading. Megan had made good on her threat and just wrote the same thing again. Still, there had to be a connection, a group behind the three. There simply had to be one. In front of his desk, David waited with a file in his hand. "Yeah, sure." Don focused on his agent.

"So I'm working on the fraud thing," David said and indicated with his chin to a file on Don's desk. Searching through his memories, Don remembered the case distantly. Usually, this case wouldn't have ended up on his desk, but there had been two suspicious death in connection to the fraud and suddenly it was a job for the violent crime division. "I traced back the origin of the money to a company with four employees. Only one of them is needed to sign the papers to free the money," David explained. "What would you advise?"

Grabbing the offered file with the current documents, Don paged through the data. Then he snapped the file shut again and handed it back to David. "The same thing you would do. Get all four in and see who breaks first." Don paused. "And I don't need you to come to me with every little thing, just so I may feel useful."

"Well," David accepted the file back. "I asked because I needed your advice. Why else do you think I would come to you? Because it's a given fact that you are needed."

Don snorted and shook his head. "I got kidnapped by some punks. Not my best day."

"You were drugged," David replied. "That's different."

Refocusing on his own work and Megan's file, Don looked away. "Well, then I got kidnapped and drugged by some punks. Not better," he mumbled.

David exhaled loudly. "Would you say any of this to a victim of GHB?"

"Of course not!" Don shot back.

"Would you say any of this if the victim of GHB was a federal agent?" David asked, crossing his arms. "Should she have been better watching her drink? Wearing different clothes? Going to different places?"

"No."

"Then why don't you exercise some leniency for yourself?" David raised his eyebrows, challenging him. "I know what I do with my case because I learned that from you. You're a good agent."

Don leaned back in his chair, working his jaw. There were several answers on top of his tongue, yet none of them seemed reasonable in broad daylight.

David had mercy and continued without forcing Don to answer. "I heard that you have taken a liking to midnight runs."

Shifting in his seat, Don narrowed his eyes. That was far too fast for the rumor mill.

"One of the officers I know from the Lost Kids Neighborhood Project we both support called me after he has seen you," David explained. The explanation sounded so innocent and yet Don could hear the worry in David's words. Rolling his eyes, Don refused to provide an answer and turned back to his desk, intending to get some work done. That seemed a better prospect than continuing this conversation with David.

Leaning forward, David lowered his voice and said, "Tell you what, next time you want to go for a run, give me a call, and we both go, no matter the hour and -"

"Don?" Colby's timely arrival saved Don from having to acknowledge David's offer, and he gratefully focused on the interruption. "Finally got the list Charlie highlighted," Colby reported. "Horatio Cruz' old classmates from high-school? There's one name, James Edwards, you need to take a look at." Colby held out the still warm paper, just having been printed, and Don grabbed it. At least Colby was willing to take a second look. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw David sighing, but chose to ignore it. This list was far more important right now.

He was almost getting used to it - the locks, the sounds, the stern glares of the guards. But this time everything seemed harsher.

"Hey, professor," Horatio Cruz said through the receiver. "Thanks for coming."

The booth and the clothes were far too small for the young man and Charlie stared at him for a long moment before he saw David's nod to pick up the phone receiver on his side. With a trembling hand, Charlie reminded himself that he was safe behind the glass. "Horatio," he said in greeting. "I'm surprised you agreed to talk to me."

"Yeah, well it didn't work out like it was supposed to do. So, it was the least I could do." Horatio looked down, playing with the band around his wrist that had changed his life from being free to being a number.

"Because you had grabbed my brother and not me?"

"No," Horatio said, raising his head and meeting Charlie's eyes. "It was never supposed to be so much drug in the coffee. I never wanted to kill anybody, just ..." Horatio's gaze went back down.

Charlie waited but Horatio kept his silence. Ignoring the way his heart throbbed in his chest, Charlie tried to remember his line of thought, the reason he had wanted these visits so badly. He had wanted, no needed, to understand why three young and bright students had done something so irrational and senseless. He didn't even need to read the papers or watch the TV shows, to know that the public opinion fell neatly along the battle lines with just a few exceptions. But change, they had not achieved. "What would you have done if you had grabbed me?"

"It's the past now," Horatio mumbled his reply. "I can't change it." Raising his head, he offered Charlie a small smile. "But I'm glad you're fine."

"What about my brother?"

"I guess, I'm glad too, that he's alive." Horatio gave him a one-sided shrug. "Like I said, I didn't want to kill anybody."

"You didn't want to kill anybody but hurting my brother was all right?"

"Listen, it's not like that had been the plan, but somehow we had to make ourselves heard." Finally, the dull and lifeless voice changed and Horatio's expression started to show his zeal for his ideas.

"So, you're fine with how it went down?" Charlie asked surprised.

"Yes! Everybody is arguing about our motive and what we wanted to achieve. We have reached more as if our plan had worked."

Charlie shook his head, suddenly feeling old. He was used to feeling young, too young around a lot of older and wiser people. But now he felt really old in face of the enthusiasm that wasn't grounded in reality. "You did yourself and your idea a great disservice, you know that?"

"Because the FBI can't take some bad press?" Horatio snarled back with a sneer.

"No," Charlie replied, "because you demonstrated something important."

"Yeah, and what?"

Tilting his head, Charlie wished to be able to make him see but also knowing he could not change another person's mind. "Is saving the planet worth your humanity? For who do you want to save it? What happens to empathy, to freedom and to our ideal of equality in the world you want to create?"

Horatio pressed his lips together, keeping the words in, but the angry reply was already reflected on his face and in his narrowed eyes.

"What world do you want to live in? One where everybody who doesn't agree with you is killed? Beaten? Or drugged?"

"We can't keep on talking. We need to do something now," Horatio insisted.

"I know the numbers, I know the science behind it. I even helped to create the necessary models. You don't need to convince me how important climate protection is," Charlie said. "But living is more than breathing clean air, sheltering from the elements and eating organic food. It's love, it's math, it's humanity."

"We want that, too!"

"Really? What you did, what you want is to protect the climate regardless of the cost to humaneness." As Horatio gaped at him, suddenly Charlie knew what had been missing in his theory up until now - the ability of the human mind to overwrite basics instincts with higher ideals. He really needed to grab a notepad and write this down.

Somewhere in the human brain, there had to be a process that could change priority, a process that could ignore survival instincts. No matter how well fear and anger could overrule rational thoughts, rational thoughts could also win against fear and anger. There had to be a way to evince this into an expression usable by both biologist and mathematicians.

While Horatio tried to win back the prevalence over the conversation, Charlie was already immersed in his thoughts.

Alan watched Don picking at his food. He seemed far away no matter that he was sitting at Alan's table. It couldn't be the food, Alan had made sure to only use the most delicious items in cooking one of Don's favorite meals. He tried desperately to think of something to say. Before he could come up with neutral topic, Don pushed away his plate. "You haven't invited me to lunch just so you can watch me eat. So, what's up?"

Jerking at the hard tone, Alan held onto his temper. No need to lose the conversation right at the beginning. "Firstly, yes, I only invited you for lunch because I wanted to see you eat something. It's not like you come over anymore like you used to do."

"I'm busy, Dad," Don interrupted.

"Of course, you are," Alan agreed with a smile. "I can see Charlie's network analysis growing by day and somebody has to dig up all the information."

Don narrowed his eyes at him. "You also think, I'm wasting my time."

Alan took a deep breath. "Not wasting your time. Time spent trying to figure out something is never wasted. But I'm worried about the direction of your journey."

A dark smirked graced Don's features. "How's Millie?" Don asked, suddenly changing the topic.

"She's fine."

"So, you're talking again to each other?"

Too late, Alan recognized the trap he had walked right into. Crossing his arms, Alan knew there was no way but through it. "Yes, that's what adults do if they don't agree on something. They talk to each other." Don rolled his eyes and Alan had to chuckle as he realized that he had used his parent voice. "Donnie, I hope you do not truly think that I would choose any protest over you."

For a long moment, Don tapped with his fingers a melody on the table. A melody only he knew.

"Donnie," Alan started again, afraid that his son would really believe that.

"No," Don interrupted. "No, I do not believe that. But I did wonder where you would draw the line." He looked right at him. "How far are you willing to go for your idea and ideals? What would you have done if somebody had run a similar plan by you back then in the sixties?"

Alan had always known that Don excelled in the role of investigator. But sometimes he wished that he would be spared from Don's hard questions. "The truth is, Donnie, I don't know what I would have done. I hope I would have said no, but I cannot pretend to have known back then what I do know now."

"And what do you know now?"

"Times are changing whether we want or not."

"Meaning?" Don asked while he picked up his fork again.

"In ten or twenty years the opinions of today's youth will be a major driving force. By then they'll have reached the manager positions that enables them to make far-reaching decision." Alan took a deep breath. "You know, back then I thought I was leaving the antiwar movement to take care of my family but in reality I never left. I just changed the way I expressed my opinions, starting by the way I did my job, the way I raised my sons and the way I voted. Even in the way I treated my neighbors, I let myself be guided by my ideals."

Don nodded. Walking the high morale ground versus the necessity to deal with the reality had been a highly discussed topic in Don's youth. He probably really remembered most of Alan's opinions on these matters. He had repeated them often enough.

"I guess I changed the world more by living by my principals than by protesting for them. You, both of my sons, are the reason I can say I'm proud of what I have done."

"I joined the FBI," Don pointed out.

"Yes, you did," Alan grumbled. "And I'm still trying to figure out what I did wrong there but your choice also taught me an important lesson."

"Yeah, which one?"

"To let go, to be tolerant towards other choices, to bear the equality of different opinions."

Don snorted. "Well, at least I'm not threatened to be used in a published paper by your insights."

Alan smirked. "Maybe I switch classes just to write a paper on you?" Alan joked before he turned serious again. "I'm proud of you that you don't blame your brother but that you two work together to make sense of it."

Don looked down, giving up on eating and leaving a half-full plate. "Yeah, well, that's not working out so great at the moment. I only got one name out of a lot of work. Maybe Megan's right, and I'm really chasing ghosts."

Reaching out with his hand to touch Don's hand resting on top of the table, Alan tried to offer some comfort. "It's okay if you can't make sense of it. I'm older and I have seen far more, and I'm still struggling with all of it."

"But you seem at peace. As if you wouldn't have almost lost Charlie -"

"Don!" He sounded angrier that he wanted, pulling his hand back. "For me there's no difference if I almost lost you or Charlie. Don't ever doubt this!"

Don nodded. "If they had grabbed Charlie ..." he trailed off, but the pain was etched on Don's face. "I have at least my work to keep me occupied."

"And your brother has his math. You're both resilient." Alan reached out again, but this time Don pulled his hand back, pushed the chair back and climbed to his feet. "I need to go back to the office. Thanks for lunch." He hesitated, before he looked Alan in the eyes. "I still just want to track down everybody who thinks like them and lock them up, so nobody ever does anything like this again. I want somebody to pay for all the pain. For taking away Charlie's innocence, for destroying the peace we had on campus. I want to -" Don broke off, his hands balled into fists.

"Donnie," Alan started unsure how to continue and started to raise.

"Never mind. Thanks for the ..." Don shrugged, waved goodbye and walked out, closing the door behind him and leaving his sentence unfinished.

TBC

A/N Don't worry, Alan's word are helping, it just takes time for them to travel from ear to mind and from mind to heart. Thank you for reading!