Title: Shall We Play A Game?

Author: FraidyCat

Disclaimer: per diem

Invitation: Remember, this is the readers' story. Please keep playing. You can suggest plot devices or twists; or, perhaps you have a favorite line you've always wanted to see in fanfic. Tell me what it is, and I will try to work it in.

A/N: I must say: Some of you puppies are quite ill. The Twinkster wants me to infect Charlie's family jewels? As if he didn't have enough problems…

HA!… Our Story Continues…

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Chapter Five: Establish a Pattern

There was a long line at the admission desk, so Colby rounded the corner into the waiting area first. It was after midnight by now, but it was just as crowded as it had been when he left almost six hours before. Someone was sitting in the chair he had occupied. There was an empty chair next to him, although several people were standing. After a brief perusal, Colby could understand their reluctance to get very close. The – man? -- was rocking back-and-forth, twisting a long strand of greasy hair around the finger of a hand he held over one ear. He appeared to be talking to himself. Occasionally he would lift his other hand and slap himself in the face. Colby decided that if his phone was under that butt, he would just buy a new cell.

He shuddered and left the waiting area. He stopped at the water cooler for some brief refreshment, and then joined the line at the admission desk, behind a woman in her 30s standing with her arm around a young girl, about 10 years old. The woman looked at Colby with apprehension and mild suspicion, as if he somehow represented danger, and he tried to put her at ease. He smiled disarmingly at the flushed little girl. "You're up past your bedtime," he teased lightly, and she grinned tremulously back.

"I slept all day," she responded, her voice far too deep for a little girl her size.

Her mother pulled her a little closer. "Don't talk, sweetheart," she said. "You'll hurt your throat."

The child lifted one hand to rub at the front of her neck and leaned into her mother. "Yeah," she whispered. "Wish I had some of Bernie's ice cream."

Colby straightened, and his smile turned into a frown. "Bernie's?" He directed his question to the mother. "Diner on the South side?"

She sighed and nodded. "Her father takes her there almost every morning. Idiot. A little girl needs her father for more than breakfast at Bernie's." The little girl's shoulders began to shake, and she buried her face in her mother's side. The woman leaned her head toward her daughter. "Hush, baby, Mama's sorry. Mama's sorry. I'm just worried about you."

The girl pulled back. "I can still go with Daddy?" she asked. Her mother reassured her, and Colby was about to ask more about Bernie's when the colorful character from the waiting area passed by the queue, still talking to himself and walking directly into the corner near the front entrance. His feet were still moving as if he thought he could somehow make the wall disappear. The child made a face and tried to hide between her mother and Colby. "I don't like that man," she whispered. "He always eats alone."

Her mother gently reprimanded her. "Laura, it's not nice to make fun of someone just because he's…different." She arched her eyebrows at Colby over her daughter's head.

"But nobody likes him," Laura insisted. "Daddy said he comes to the diner every single meal, and he always sits alone at the counter. No-one will sit next to him. He always talks to himself that way. And he's dirty."

Colby glanced again at the decrepit stranger and then leaned slightly to talk to Laura. "He eats at Bernie's, sweetheart?"

She nodded seriously. "He pays with pennies and nickels," she reported. "Miss Sarah said he never leaves a tip."

The line suddenly moved and Laura and her mother reached the counter, where the older woman began reciting Laura's symptoms. Colby turned to regard the strange apparition again just in time to see him go down, knees giving way like jelly as he dropped to the floor in an unconscious, filthy heap. "Hey!" said Colby loudly, but hospital personnel were already scurrying to deal with their latest emergency.

"Sir?" Colby heard, and he turned back to find that Laura and her mother had disappeared, and the tired ward clerk was tapping a pen on the counter to get his attention. "Sir!"

Colby stepped forward and flashed his most brilliant smile. "Sorry. I was here earlier tonight with a friend and I think I may have lost my cell phone in the waiting area. Has anyone turned one in to you?"

The clerk grimaced. "I'm three hours into OT. So far today we've collected two Barbie® dolls, four books, seven cells and an umbrella."

Colby pondered. "An umbrella? It hasn't rained since February."

She shrugged. "It is what it is. And what it is, is in a box with all of the other stuff; on its way to lost-and-found. One of the custodial staff just picked it all up and is dropping if off at administration. I'm sorry, you'll have to come back during business hours to look for your phone."

Colby heard a sound of distress from someone behind him in the line, and hurriedly asked for Charlie's room number. "Visiting hours are over," the clerk said, and Colby flashed his most charming dimple.

"Yeah, of course. I just wanna send him flowers. In the morning."

She yawned and tapped a few keys on her computer, completely unperturbed by the dirty lump in the corner and all the hospital personnel surrounding it. A quick glance over his shoulder had told Colby that the individual in question was now convulsing. Things didn't look too good for the man who always paid with pennies.

In a few seconds, Colby had the room number, and he stepped out of line. The main entrance to the ER was almost completely blocked now with nurses, doctors, security, gurneys…besides, he wanted to discuss all this Bernie's stuff with Charlie. He fingered his back pocket to make sure he was carrying his ID and badge, then strode purposefully away from the desk, toward the bowels of the hospital.

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A courier from a 24-hour service delivered the envelope 10 minutes before print deadline. Managing Editor Scotty Abrams could have sent the statement along to the 24/7 online crew, but he was a dinosaur. He still visited the print warehouse regularly. The smell of the ink, the clanging of metal plates as they were hung, the intricate web of newsprint leading into the press off rolls bigger than his office… this, this was a newspaper, dammit. He rarely got to bellow "STOP THE PRESSES!" anymore, and he missed it. Late-breaking news was typed directly into the website, broadcast to the world sometimes before he had finished reading the telex himself.

God, he hated the internet.

So he chewed on the end of his unlit cigar – that was another thing; in the old days, every newspaper man worth his typewriter was smoking something – and ripped the envelope open. He began reading the contents. Halfway through, his mouth dropped open far enough for the cigar to fall out and he struggled out of his chair and began to stumble through the press room, looking for the best reporter he could find who was still there. "STOP THE PRESSES!", he yelled, waving the page frantically in the air. "STOP THE PRESSES!"

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The first security guard Colby ran into was stationed outside what turned out to be the psychiatric wing. He couldn't leave his post, but he was amiable enough, and tried to give the agent directions to Charlie's room. On the way, he passed a few of the housekeeping and custodial staff – one was even so paranoid he was working in gloves and mask – and contemplated what he knew so far.

Charlie would say there was no such thing as a 'coincidence'. Entirely too many of the victims of this latest influenza outbreak had Bernie's in common. That commonality was one point of a pattern. Colby didn't know exactly where to go from there, though. If he didn't personally know any of the ill people, and heard a bunch of folks got sick after eating at the same place, he would automatically assume some kind of salmonella, or food poisoning, and make it a point never to go to that restaurant himself. Yet what he had witnessed of this illness just didn't fit the profile.

He remembered his own bout with food poisoning, almost a full year before. It had been the Memorial Day weekend, and the team had scored big. Not only were they not on call – it was a three-day weekend. He and David had stopped at a little place in East L.A. for lunch after a witness interview. Dave had stuck with something predictable, and boring – grilled cheese, Colby thought now – but he had decided to start the celebratory weekend a little early. Seafood salad. The waitress swore up and down the crab and shrimp were fresh, local, out-of-this-world.

Around 7 that evening, Colby was ready to agree with the last part of that description. He'd never been so sick in his life, and it lasted the whole damn weekend. Sure, he had a headache – slight fever, too – but mostly he remembered it as a decidedly…gastrointestinal…experience. He spent most of Saturday sitting on the john with a trash can in his lap, since it was the only way he could deal with both issues at once. By Monday, the worst of it was over, but he was exhausted. Slept all day – and was afraid to eat for another week. In all the time he was with Charlie and Alan today, there had been no complaints of nausea. His keen sense of the obvious would have picked up on diarrhea, too. But if salmonella wasn't linking Bernie's diners together, what was? Colby was hoping Charlie was feeling a little better, and would have some ideas of his own.

The second time he ran into a security guard, he again showed his I.D. and said he had to talk to his hospitalized 'partner' about a case. Hell, it was just a tiny stretch…Charlie worked with them, didn't he? Ergo, he was a partner. Turned out this guard was retired LAPD, and he actually walked Colby most of the way to Charlie's room. The guard's radio sounded when they were almost there, though, and he had to take off. Charlie's room was just a few steps away, now, so Colby pushed on by himself.

He opened the door slowly, peeking inside the dimly-lit room to see if Charlie was sleeping. The first thing to really capture his attention was the IV stand at the side of the bed; or more accurately, the dangling tubes that nearly reached the floor. In fact, they probably would have, but were twisted in the fabric of a hospital gown. The bed itself was a tangle of sheets – and empty. Colby stood at the end for a moment and then squatted to look more closely at the gown. Sure enough, it was dotted with blood – probably from Charlie ripping out his own IV.

He straightened with creaky knees and examined the dark recesses of the room's border. "Charlie?" he called quietly. He didn't see or hear anything, so he decided to find a nurse's station and risk their wrath at his midnight visit. Someone had to tell them Charlie was missing. As he turned to leave, however, he spied another door, nearly closed. Ah. That had to be the bathroom.

He approached almost silently, and pulled the door open a few more inches so that he could peek around the corner. "Charlie?" he repeated. This time, there was a definite answering sniff, as well as some rather loud and congested breathing. Colby had stalked his prey.

He didn't want to startle Charlie or hurt his eyes, so he backed away far enough to reach the light switch on the wall next to the main door. He flipped it on, and overhead fluorescents began to hum and pop. He returned to the bathroom door and let the outside light filter in as he pushed it open cautiously. "Dude," he whispered. "You in here?"

At first he was relieved to see the empty toilet – he wasn't really looking for something that up-close and personal – but he was soon flustered when the sniffling grew louder and there was still no sign of Charlie. He stepped further into the bathroom then, and followed the trail of blood on the floor. Kneeling down, Colby opened the cupboard under the sink and was stunned nearly speechless when he finally spied the professor. At the best of times, Charlie was a small guy; short and skinny. He'd been ill for a few days, so he was even skinnier, now; somehow, he had managed to jam himself onto the bottom shelf of the cupboard. His curly head rested on a roll of toilet paper. Both hands were wrapped around his naked torso – the bleeding one on top. He was clothed only in his boxers, and he was crying.

Colby stalled for time, reaching up to flip the bathroom lights on. When he looked into the cupboard again, he had finally found his voice. "Charlie. What the hell are you doing?"

Tears spilled from Charlie's dark, miserable eyes. "Th…they don't l-l-love m-m-me," he stammered. His voice was so strained and quiet Colby had to lean forward to catch everything. He could feel the heat radiating from Charlie's body.

"Charlie, c'mon," he started, but Charlie was talking again.

"D-d-donny left, and D-d-dad…I…I wanna go home, and th-th-th-they left me…." He stopped talking, overcome with tears again.

Colby clucked compassionately. "Aw, Charlie, man, that's not true." Charlie was obviously beyond really following a conversation, so Colby hesitated before explaining where everyone was, and why.

He was still contemplating his next move when Charlie inched forward a little, practically putting his head in Colby's lap. "Y-y-you came for me, Colby. D-d-do you love m-m-me?"

"Aw, geez..." Colby started to throw his hands up and then found himself wrapping them around Charlie's skinny arms instead. He started tugging gently, trying to get him out of the cupboard, scooting across the floor toward the wall as the extrication got under way. "Come on, Whiz Kid…you know…" – Colby grunted when most of Charlie popped out and he found himself with a lap full of nearly-naked mathematician – "ya know I'm quite…fond…of you."

To his horror, Charlie began to cry again. He and Colby were both facing the sink, now, and Charlie's thin shoulders shook against Colby's chest. "N-n-nobody loves m-m-me," he cried. "Wh-where's Larry? 'M-'M-'Mita…" He struggled weakly against Colby. "I d-d-don't feel g-g-good…"

Colby rolled his eyes over Charlie's head. Something told him the professor was not going to be good for much help tonight. He spied the emergency cord near the toilet and tried to reach far enough to pull the string, nearly dumping Charlie back into the cupboard. "Take it easy," he soothed. "You told us they went to Palomar, remember?"

Charlie either shivered, or was still crying. "P-p-palomar?"

"Yeah," Colby confirmed. "CalTech is sharing some kind-of research thing?" Charlie didn't answer, so Colby kept going. "You said they're driving back tomorrow, and went down yesterday."

Charlie summoned a massive amount of strength from somewhere, and rolled himself off Colby so that he was sitting with his back against the now-closed door, immediately to his left. He blinked owlishly a few times and then grinned. "YESTERDAY!" It would have been a shout if Charlie had much voice left, and Colby started a little. Charlie giggled, and began to warble. "Yesterday….all my tr-troubles seemed so-o far AWAY…."

Colby managed to hook a finger around the emergency light and tugged the string. "Oh, good Lord," he breathed. He shifted around closer to the toilet so that he and Charlie were almost facing each other. "Stop singing, dude! Move away from the door – I just pulled the string."

Charlie clamped his mouth shut and his eyes filled with tears again. Colby expected some kind of hurt stammering about his insult to Charlie's singing, but was surprised when Charlie extended his shaking, wounded hand, index finger wavering near Colby's face. Charlie smiled brightly through his tears. "P-pull my finger," he said.

Colby couldn't help himself, and a snort of wild laughter burst from his mouth at the same time that someone tried to push the door open. Charlie flew head-first into Colby, landing with his face in his lap. Colby looked up to see a startled young woman staring at the tableau and blushing furiously. "Oh," she squeaked, starting to back away, "excuse me…"

Colby tried to scamper backwards, or sideways, or anywhere, and wondered why Charlie wasn't moving. "NO!" he yelled after the nurse. "Please, it's not what it looks like!" He finally grabbed Charlie's naked shoulders and rolled him to one side while he scooted the other way. "Damn, he's hot," he mumbled, and the nurse, who had started to approach again, made a noise of distress and started to back off once more. Colby groaned and noted Charlie's closed eyes, his flaccid features – the kid was unconscious again. "NOT THAT WAY!" Colby yelled. "To the touch…I mean, his skin…" The nurse was tiptoeing back, and Colby gave up. "Ah, hell," he muttered.

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A/N: And there you have it: Charlie crying in his boxers. I have some tentative plans for the next chapter which involve some equal time for Don's boxers, but since I haven't seen your suggestions yet, that could all change….