Numb3rs
Safe Haven

Summary: We all a safe haven right? Whether it's our room or a special spot outside, but our safe havens are a lot different from that of a mathematical genius.

Disclaimer: Yet again, I do not claim ownership to anything that has to do with the show Numb3rs; I'm just momentarily using them to enhance my writing. I promise to reuturn all characters unharmed. Thank you.

I thank you everyone for your very nice reviews of my first story 'When the Sun Sleeps'. I was very surprised. Thank you very much for everything and I hope that you like this story as well.

Anyways, on with the story.

They were his safe haven. A place away from the world and all it's many problems. When he was in his safe haven, he was oblivious to everyone and everything. Nothing could touch him or harm him here…except for maybe one thing or rather one person.
Don had been resting in his office having just finished up one of the toughest cases he had taken on in months. After nine people had already been killed, the criminal was finally brought to justice. Everyone was happy when the case was finally closed, although they felt disappointed that they let nine people die so easily. If they had only been quicker, there would have been fewer sufferings.

The FBI agent was just about to fall asleep, when he remembered that he had made a promise to his brother to meet him for lunch. He quickly got his coat and keys and hightailed it to his SUV. The drive was relatively short and he made it his brother's workplace in record time, although he was a little later than expected.

Don pulled into the parking lot of CalSci and was surprised to find an ambulance there.

"I wonder what happened here?" he asked quietly to himself.

He quickly found a parking space, parked his SUV, and hurriedly jumped out. Don rushed over to where a crowd of people were gathered and shoved himself through the crowd to get a better view of what had happened.

After a few people were shoved around and the warnings of an FBI agent coming through, Don finally had a bird's eye view of the scene. There was a kid, a student perhaps, lying face down on the ground, and a pool of blood leaking out from his body. From what he heard from the people around him, the guy had apparently tried to kill himself by jumping off a building. Two EMTs were quickly sticking needles in his arm, and wrapping a brace around his neck. They quickly loaded him onto a gurney and hauled off him to the ambulance.

"At least it wasn't Charlie. I just hope he didn't witness this. That would be bad," Don thought to himself.

"Donald! Donald!" a voice called out to Don. He whipped around to where the voice was coming from, and spotted none other than Charlie's friend and mentor, Larry Fleinhard.

"Larry, where's Charlie at? Is he alright?" Don asked Larry as he ran to where he was standing.

"I don't know Donald. We were walking out of the building together when we witnessed this kid jumping off of the building. I'd imagined that it scared Charles something awful. He just grabbed his bike and took off without saying a word," Larry explained to Don. Don whipped out his cell phone and quickly dialed Charlie's cell number. He was dismayed when Charlie didn't answer and was forwarded to his voicemail.

"He didn't answer his phone," Don explained to Larry.

"Maybe he went home. I can't think of anywhere else he would go besides there," Larry offered.

"Hopefully you're right Larry," Don said as he took off for his SUV. Once there, he got in, quickly started it, and pulled out of the CalSci parking lot.

"Please Charlie be at home," Don said silently to himself.

After a few minutes of driving, Charlie's house was in sight. Don pulled into the driveway and was relieved to see Charlie's bicycle leaning against the house.

He quickly turned off the vehicle, got out, and rushed to the front door to find it slightly opened. His father obviously wasn't at home or he would have closed the door behind Charlie.

"Charlie? Charlie are you in here?" Don called out.

He looked throughout the house and the backyard but still couldn't find his little brother. All that was left to check was the garage where his little brother had escaped to numerous times like these. He quickly ran to the garage only to find the door locked. Charlie never locked the door in the past. Frantic to get to his brother, Don started beating on the door and calling Charlie's name over and over again.

"Charlie! Charlie open the door now!" Don continued beating on the door desperately. After what seemed like years to Don, Charlie finally unlocked the door and then quickly rushed back to his chalkboards. Don walked in slowly and saw Charlie scribbling away at an equation on the board. He looked at the work on the boards and just like always, couldn't understand anything that Charlie scrawled down.

Slowly, Don approached his brother and laid a hand down on his shoulder only to have Charlie jerk away from him and move to a different board to continue his work.

"Charlie you know you can't do this. You can't do this every time something bad happens to you. You can't just run away from everything. Let me help you," Don told his brother gently. Charlie stopped writing and turned to look at his older brother

"Do you really want to help me Don?" Charlie asked his brother, his face full of agony. Don's heart went out to him.

"Yes Charlie, let me help you," Don reassured Charlie.

"If you really want to help me, then you would take these images out of my head. Take away the images of watching one of my star students ending his life by jumping off a building. Take away the image of his body slamming into the ground. Take away the images of watching his blood pool around him. Take them away!" Charlie screamed at his older brother before he dropped to his knees as his emotions overwhelmed him all at once. He hugged himself tightly and let the tears he had kept in, pour down his face. Don dropped to his knees in front of Charlie and brought his little brother into an emotional embrace. Charlie clung onto his older brother as he would disappear at any given moment.

"I'm sorry Chuck. I don't know what else to say except that I'm here to help you," Don told the trembling Charlie in his arms.

They stayed like that for a long time and slowly over time, Charlie's tears degraded to only a sniffle here and there. After a few more of Charlie's quiet sniffles, he slowly pulled away from Don and wiped at the last remaining traces of tears on his face.

"Thanks Donnie. I'm sorry that I lashed out at you like that. I guess that my emotions just finally brought me down. You didn't deserve any of that," Charlie apologized to his brother.

"It's alright Chuck. You were just uptight after everything that happened to you today," Don smiled at his younger brother as he stood and pulled Charlie up after him. Don turned to walk towards the door but stopped when he didn't feel Charlie following behind him. He turned back around to face his brother and noticed him staring back at the many chalkboards that scattered the garage.

"What's wrong Charlie?" Don asked his younger sibling.

"All people have different ways with dealing with their problems. I deal with mine through numbers and equations. You deal with yours by working. I guess some people just have better ways at dealing with their problems than others," Charlie told Don, looking at him with a sad look.

"Yeah…I guess so. Now come on, let's go get something to eat," Don said to Charlie as he started his way to his black SUV. Charlie smiled at his brother's back and ran to catch up with him, leaving his safe haven behind for the time being.

Beendet

Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I hope that it made sense to you all and if it didn't, just tell me and I'll go back and fix it or I'll tell you what it was supposed to mean. Also, I partially got the idea for this story from a song called 'Safe Haven' by Project 86. The song and my story aren't closely related though, just mostly similar ideas. I was reading over this story just now and I noticed that it kind of has an idea from a story that FraidyCat is working on right now. I did not mean for it to end up that way, but I had already started writing this before FraidyCat's story was first posted. If any of you have any problems with it, I will delete or try and spend some time revising it, just please don't be mad at me. Thank you.

EmergencyShelter
October 23, 2006