Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

Once again, thank you for the support! All feedback really helps in chapter development :) Additionally, I'd like to apologize for the long wait in between updates. It's been a little busy here (we JUST got a fresh foot of snow last night - cue the excitement), and this story has taken a bit of a backseat to other work and Precedent. There is one chapter left, and it is around half-way done. Would you rather see an alternate ending available upon request only, or published with/after the final chapter?

It didn't help that he knew that I knew – that he was going to ask me, and give me that awful pained look of frustrated, misdirected and suppressed passion when the question finally came. He'd break it in softly, with a hesitant, attempted-off handed delivery, and then I was supposed to realize quietly what he was doing. I was supposed to break down like I knew I would, because this was one of his cases and he was my brother and I couldn't let Don down – and god, Charlie, but it's only a simple tweaking of some parameters. Just reapply the goddamn standard error, solve for a new x.

You can do it. You're supposed to be able to do it.

I knew he was going to ask when he hung up slowly, with the phone falling gradually away from his ear. I imagined it falling to the floor and Don losing his voice – and the numbers being wiped clean, the mess I'd left on the dining room table, Megan's laugh, dark rooms and late nights and watery coffee. I can't do this, Don. Don't make me do this. But I just stared at him, expressionless, from beneath tangled curls that, for once, made me wish I'd had the self-motivation to shower and not just Don's paper-thin direction. By desperate chance my eyes settled on the torn pieces of equation.

"Charlie." Hand on my shoulder. I felt myself flinch. "Buddy, I don't… want to… force you into doing – anything you don't want to do."

It came out as a brittle whine: "I said no." I could feel the tears now, pressing closer in my confusion. He knew I couldn't do this. I knew I couldn't do this. Right? The team should understand this, should know that asking me to refine the… the parameters, to adjust the alpha- Why are you asking this now? Why are you asking me now? Why are you breaking it to me like this? Biting down hard on my tongue, I ducked down between my knees, clutching my hair, the bile creeping slowly and insistently along the lining of my throat. I didn't remember the cards. "No. I can't; I can't, Don. I can't."

Bending down with a series of pops and cracks, he moved his hand to the back of my head, his fingers subconsciously fighting through the knots. "Buddy, look," he was saying, "look, I don't want to mix you up in something – you don't want any more. This case-" Breath in, hold, slow breath out; I waited, feeling my own labored panting even out, then grow shaky and unrestrained once again. "It's okay Charlie. Don't worry about it."

I tucked my head even more tightly between my knees and squeezed; if there was one thing I never wanted to hear, it was Don giving in like this. His tone had just run dry of all the desperate hope I'd detected before, and the sudden dearth scared me. There was just warm emptiness. A wall. Everything had stopped. He never stopped.

"Don?"

"Charlie, sit up."

"I feel sick."

His hand moved to my back, but I didn't want him to try and – I didn't want him to touch me. Maybe he meant for it to be this way, with my next train of thought dependent on words of his that would not be forthcoming. Maybe he knew that I was tired of the math and what it did to me, but nevertheless needed that threadbare purpose, needed it because it was the only thing I knew. Maybe he saw it the way I understood it: as a second chance. I sat up a little, propping my elbows on my knees and my head between my hands. The silence turned thoughtful.

Don shook his head. "I don't want you back on the case. We'll go to Larry or-"

"This is my work, not theirs."

"Charlie, I don't want you working on this again."

"I-I don't think I want to – either," I snapped at him, "but it's not – for you to decide."

He didn't have the pinched brows and locked jaw, but he was getting there and didn't seem to appreciate the unexpected opposition. "No. You yourself said you couldn't- Charlie, I am not the bad guy here, I don't want to be the bad guy here-"

My fingers grasped the hem of his shirt, winding themselves tighter and tighter until I knew the fabric chafed. "I need to finish it."

"Charlie, stop it! Stop it, you don't need to finish anything! No more finishing!" he exploded suddenly, pulling away and then thinking better of it, his arms wrapping around me and pulling me close. What felt like hot tears splattered my shoulder. "I don't ever – don't say that Charlie, don't say it. You aren't finishing anything-"

I fought against the embrace, feeling distinctly smothered. "No! I want to finish it!"

And then his hands were on either side of me, grasping my arms hard enough to bruise, and shaking me, shaking and shaking and shaking and crying, too. Just screaming. Unintelligible. "No more finishing!" Then I was crying and shaking on my own, and Don looked so lost and sad that I felt the sobs wrenching harder and harder, until I might just drain myself of all the tears I ever had – just in this moment here. When he got up abruptly and left, striding haltingly out onto the porch, I first curled up on the couch and remembered the stark emptiness of everything. Half a minute later, the sound of a phone call filtered in from outside. I got up and staggered upstairs and found more chalk, but I didn't need chalk, I needed a dry-erase marker.

I found a package in the bathroom.