Title: The Fury of the Wind
Author: Windimere Wellen
Part: 14 of ?
Disclaimer: Don't sue me. I don't own this and I'm not making any money off of it…
Author's Note: Sorry it's taken me so long to update… Had some crazy boy problems this past week that really messed up my life lol. But, that's more information than you guys probably want! Hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!
Charlie was warm. Not too warm. Not hot. Just warm. Pleasantly so. His eyes were closed and he had the sensation of being wrapped in a tight, comfortable cocoon. Under his closed eye lids he saw red, and knew that the sun was up and streaming through a window, making him feel lazy and sleepy.
As Charlie laid there, his brain slowly began to turn and he briefly felt like something was wrong.
Something's not right. I'm not in my room. Why am I not in my room? It certainly smelled like the old Craftsman house that he owned. And the direction of the sun creeping in through the windows would be consistent with the window in his room, which he could tell even with his eyes closed, but something wasn't quite right.
The bed seemed to be the wrong size. A little too small maybe. And it didn't smell right. Despite these problems, Charlie was still loathe to open his eyes. He was so tired. He couldn't remember being so tired that he hadn't even had the energy to open his eyes.
His whole body felt like a block of lead.
Dismissing the mystery of where he was, Charlie had the sensation of sinking back down, further into the mattress. Sleep was just about to claim him again when his always active brain supplied to him what the strange smell was.
Smells like Don.
For a moment, Charlie's stomach muscles tensed, like they had always done when he worried. Charlie swallowed hard. What was wrong? Something felt wrong.
Charlie tried to drag his brain out of it's foggy stupor to figure out what was bothering him. Something about Don. Why can't I think? Am I supposed to be worrying about Don?
Then, it all came crashing back to him.
His nice, tight cocoon was shattered.
The bank. The woman with the gun. Her threats. His fingers moving like lightening over the keys. Trying to stop her from shooting Don. His deception. Her anger. Don getting up despite being hurt. Don putting himself between Charlie and the bullet. Falling. Both of them falling. And blood. A lot of blood. And Don, not breathing.
There was nothing in Charlie's stomach, but he felt the urge to throw up.
His eyes flew open, and he squinted in the morning sun, coming straight through the window, the blinds open to let the light in. In panic, Charlie rolled sideways to get off of the bed.
It was the wrong thing to do as he rolled onto his left side. Pain exploded through his arm and he cried out in agony as fire ripped up through his shoulder and down, all the way into his hand.
"Oh my goodness! Charlie, are you ok?"
It took Charlie a few seconds to comprehend that he was not alone in the room. When the black spots began to clear from his vision, and he found himself perched on the edge of the bed, his good hand clenching the bedspread, he looked up to see Amita.
She looked like his cry of pain had awakened her. She was sitting in the old rocking chair that his mother had left in the room and, as far as Charlie could tell, Amita had slept there all night.
Her shiny dark hair was flat on one side, the curl hanging limply. Her clothes were wrinkled and, although she had sounded alert, she looked as though she was still half asleep. But her face showed a huge amount of worry and concern as she looked at him.
If the situation hadn't been so serious, Charlie probably would have laughed at how typical this was of their relationship – even though they'd slept in the same room together, they'd been nearly miles apart.
"Yeah, I just… I guess I forgot about…" Charlie trailed off at Amita's sympathetic look. "Dad didn't call," he said suddenly, his stomach turning to ice.
Amita frowned at this revelation, and she nodded solemnly in assent.
"No, I don't think he did," she said in a voice so quiet that Charlie had to strain to hear her. She was reaching for Charlie's cell phone which lay on the nightstand next to the bed. She glanced at it once, then handed it to Charlie. No missed calls. No voicemail. No text message. Nothing.
Charlie swallowed hard as the guilt began to creep up inside of him. He had slept a whole night through and for all he knew, Don was dead.
"He's dead," Charlie said, his voice sounding strangely strangled. "And Dad didn't want to tell me on the phone."
"No! Charlie!" Amita's voice held and edge of horror and Charlie realized he'd spoken aloud. He hadn't meant to. He thought he'd only been thinking those thoughts. "No Charlie, I won't believe that."
"I am so sorry. I didn't mean… I just, I'm so…" Charlie trailed off. What was he? Sorry. I'm so sorry that I didn't save him. I'm scared. I'm terrified. How am I supposed to live without Don? Who will take care of Dad? Who will take care of me? I just can't do this. I can't.
"Charlie, stop. Don't apologize again. You're scared, that's to be expected," Amita got up out of the rocker and stretched and for the first time, Charlie looked around the room.
"Don's room. That's why the bed seemed small. How did I get in here?" Charlie asked, fighting down his thoughts, boxing up his emotions to be dealt with later.
"You wanted to come in here. Don't you remember? You wouldn't go to your own room last night," Amita said off hand, searching through the messenger bag she'd been carrying last night.
"I did?"
"Yeah. You wouldn't go in your own room. You really don't remember?"
Charlie thought about that for a moment, trying to think back. He remembered his father sending him home from the hospital. He remembered riding in Don's SUV. But he didn't recall much after that.
"Don't worry about it," Amita said, breaking into his train of thought. She had obviously found what she was looking for, two small orange bottles with white caps – typical prescription bottles. She handed them to him. "I'll go get some water. The doctor said take two every hour for the pain," she said with a gesture at the first one. "And one of those every six hours to prevent infection. And put this on," she added, handing him the sling he'd worn home from the hospital.
Charlie took it from her numbly and stared at it as she left the room, in search of a glass of water. Charlie set the sling down and glanced down at the bottles in his hand, realizing then that he was still in his clothes from the day before, though somewhere along the way he'd gained a new shirt. He vaguely recalled them cutting the other one away to get to the bullet wound in his shoulder.
This sent a new wave of nausea through him as he thought about Don.
He regarded the cell phone lying on the bed next to him and his good hand twitched out to grab it. He was halfway through the process of finding his father on speed dial when his fingers suddenly didn't work.
He couldn't bring himself to finish. He couldn't bring himself to call. He couldn't hear his father say, 'I'm sorry Charlie, but your brother didn't make it.'
Who are you kidding Charlie? He asked himself. Dad isn't going to be so gentle. He's going to be thinking the same thing you're thinking – why weren't you faster? Why didn't you save your brother from being shot? How could you just stand there and let Don get in between you and that bullet? Why didn't you figure out earlier that there was an inside man? None of this would have happened if you had. Don wouldn't be dead.
The cell phone fell numbly from Charlie's grasp, bouncing slightly on the bed.
He knew he was being foolish. He knew that his father would never blame him for what happened. The rational part of his brain knew that this was not his fault. He knew that he hadn't killed Don or been responsible for it. He even knew that Don might very well still be alive. And he also knew that his older brother would be horribly angry with him if he knew that Charlie was blaming himself for what had happened. He would yell. He would badger. He would ask Charlie how someone so smart could be so stupid. And all the anger would really be about love. It would really be about Don not wanting Charlie to be hurt, especially on his account.
All Charlie wanted was for Don not to be hurt too.
Charlie's thoughts were interrupted when Amita appeared in the doorway with a glass of water. She handed it to him silently, then sat down on the bed next to him and gave him a hug, careful to avoid his arm as the glass trembled in his hand.
"Do you want me to call?" she asked compationatly after a moment, after she'd assured herself that Charlie had taken his prescriptions. Her hand lay over his cell phone on the bed.
"I… I don't know."
Silence stretched between them and Charlie regarded her for a moment, seeing that she looked exhausted and the skin around her eyes was drawn, dark circles lining underneath. Her hand curled tightly around the cell phone and the released it. She was as worried about Don as he was. And she was worried abut him.
"I just need a shower, then I'll call," he promised her half-heartedly, then got up and left her there, sitting on Don's bed.
It was harder than he thought it would be to get his shirt off, and his arm felt stiff. The pain medication seemed to kick in quickly enough, but there were still jolts of pain. Charlie vaguely remembered the doctor telling him to keep the bandages dry.
Thus, showering became exceedingly difficult. Standing in the hot water, steam billowing around him, Charlie sagged against the wall, his left arm through the shower curtain up to his shoulder. He leaned forward, his head touching the tile that was still cool despite the heat of the water.
And there, in the solace of the pounding stream, Charlie's bitter tears mixed with the shower water. He indulged in his pain, both physical and emotional for close to ten minutes, but finally forced himself to turn the water off.
Now he had to be strong. Now he had to face reality. He dried and dressed the best he could, but couldn't get his clean shirt on over his head, so he decided to ask Amita for help.
Emerging from the bathroom, he heard her still in Don's room. When he poked his head inside, he found her remaking the bed. She'd fixed her hair and found one of Don's FBI hoodies to put on. It was a little too large for her, but she didn't seem to care.
She looked up when she heard him approach and offered him a smile. "Come on, I'm going to change those bandages," she said. Charlie hesitated. Something seemed off. She seemed happy. How could she be happy in a time like this?
"Amita…?" he asked, searching for answers, but she led him to the bed and began to unwrap the wound, consulting a piece of paper the doctor had given Charlie before he'd left the hospital.
"You need to call the hospital to set you up with a visiting nurse service because they need to monitor this," she told him cheerfully as she discarded the old, bloodied bandages and produced new ones.
Charlie looked down at the hole in his arm, the skin around it discolored and puckered, and he swallowed hard, then grit his teeth as she firmly wound a new bandage around it after having satisfied herself that nothing looked infected. She tried to be gentle, but the pain was overwhelming, so instead Charlie calculated the length of the bandage that Amita was using.
"Here," she said, producing a shirt from out of nowhere. It was one of Charlie's button downs – a green one that he favored and Charlie gaped at her. "I thought that buttoning might be easier than trying to get it over your head. Come on, no time to waste," she said, almost hurriedly as she helped him tug it on and began to button it.
"Amita! What's wrong with you?" Charlie asked, frustration at her cheerful state and hurried behavior seeping through.
"We have to get to the hospital," she said quietly.
Charlie's heart caught in his throat and he forced his eyes up from where they were on her hands as they continued to button his shirt, up to her face. Her eyes were shining, watery from unshed tears, but there was a smile on her face.
"What?" he asked, incredulously, and that one word held a million questions.
"I called your Dad's cell, but it was off, so I tried Megan next. Hers was off too, but I got lucky on the third time and David answered. They're still up at the hospital and your Dad was just about to call you. Don's alive and he made it through the night, which is apparently a really good thing. Your Dad would like you to come as soon as possible."
For all the world, Charlie felt like screaming, and crying, and laughing all at the same time, but instead he just smiled, the first real smile since yesterday afternoon when a man had pulled a gun on him.