Mind Games
Chapter 46
See Chapter 1 for disclaimer
A/N: Your reviews are very much appreciated.
Two days after the meeting, Charlie paced the living room. Nerves and boredom had him on his feet, roaming from one room to the next; living room, dining room, kitchen, at least until his father had chased him out of the kitchen. Now he was wearing a path from the dining room table to the sofa. The boredom needed no explanation; several days of being cooped up in the Craftsman were wearing on his patience. He was feeling better, too; he had a little more energy, which didn't help matters when it came to fidgeting.
The nerves were generated by more than one thing. Of course, there was the underlying tension that came with being under surveillance, the constant reminder that he and Don were targets. Added to that was the inescapable, terrifying memory of the attack. He wouldn't admit as much consciously, but he was burying the event, trying to forget it instead of dealing with it. He couldn't deal with it – dredge up the emotion, the fear, the pain – and still be able to support Don's recovery. He needed to be normal, calm, encouraging when Don was here – and Don had been. To Charlie's relief, his brother had spent several hours at his house yesterday. There was still underlying tension there; they circled each other like dancers; the conversation polite but wary, but Don actually seemed more relaxed as the time went on, rather than less. Wilkes had been so encouraged, he suggested that Don to return to the Craftsman the next evening, to spend the night there.
That was generating part of Charlie's nervous reaction. Don had reacted strangely to Wilkes' suggestion - Charlie wasn't sure why – but his brother had finally, reluctantly agreed, and Charlie felt both a surge of anxiety and triumph. His relationship with Don seemed to be limping back towards normalcy, bit by bit, which was exciting in itself. Along with the excitement came a sense of fear, which Charlie obstinately ignored. He wasn't still afraid of his brother. He absolutely was not. So what if Don seemed to be tense, quiet, and distant? He'd been handling himself well; they'd talked about a case at the office like old times for over an hour yesterday. No, everything was fine; there was nothing to fear. Charlie simply was anxious for the visit to go well, for Don's sake. That, at least, was what he told himself.
The other part of his nervous reaction was due to another impending visit – Amita and Larry were due back that day, and were coming to the Craftsman straight from the airport; in fact, they were due there at any moment. Again, the prospect induced both excitement and anxiety; he couldn't wait to see them, couldn't wait to hold Amita in his arms. He knew, however, that from the moment they walked in the door, he would need to lie to them, and the prospect added to his jitters, not to mention his sense of guilt. Undercover assignment or not, he still wasn't accomplished at deceit, especially when it came to two people who knew him so well. In addition, Don would be there with them that evening, making it imperative that Charlie handle himself, and the conversation, well.
The doorbell rang, and he nearly jumped from his tracks. He could hear Alan pushing through the kitchen door behind him as he made for the front door, and swung it open. Two smiling, apprehensive faces greeted him; two weary but searching sets of eyes found his. "Charles!" Larry beamed at him. "You seem to be none the worse for wear as a result of your accident."
Charlie was acutely aware of Amita's gaze on him, examining him anxiously in the split second before she rushed forward to embrace him. She clung to him tightly, and he hugged her hard, ignoring the painful twinge in his still-healing chest. "Charlie," she whispered in his ear, her voice husky with emotion. "I missed you so much." She released him and stepped back to look at him again. "We were so worried about you."
Charlie smiled at them, and cocked his head self-consciously. "I'm fine," he assured them. "Come on in, you must be exhausted."
"It was a long flight," conceded Larry, as he stepped forward to greet Alan. As they clasped hands, Amita stepped closer to Charlie.
"Are you sure you're okay?" she murmured, concern in her eyes. "You're so thin."
He lifted the corner of his mouth. "I prefer to think of it as buff," he teased, and leaned over to kiss her. God, she tasted, felt, smelled good, and that was saying something, after thirteen hours on a plane. It was a heady reminder of life before the attack, and the nearness of her felt especially poignant after all the fear and the turmoil. "I missed you so much," he whispered, emotion thick in his throat, and kissed her again.
She flushed with pleasure, her eyes shining. "I'm going to have to go away more often," she threatened, and kissed him back, lightly, her lips lingering just a little, close to his.
"Perhaps you two need a room." Alan's dry voice made them both separate, blushing at little, but he was smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners. The easy, comfortable ambiance of the moment made Charlie's heart nearly burst with happiness – a sensation almost forgotten – and Don would be there soon, to share it. Normal, he lied to himself. Life was getting back to normal again.
Later that night, he lay back in bed, one arm around Amita's shoulders as she nestled against him, skin to skin. He twisted his head slightly, and brushed her forehead with his lips, both of them breathing deeply, coming down from the rush of pleasure and passion. He stiffened slightly as her fingertip traced lazy circles over his chest; it didn't hurt, but he instinctively shied away from her tactile roaming. He couldn't afford for her to feel the scars; she couldn't see them in the darkness and he didn't want her to, at least until they had faded. If she detected them, he planned to use the accident as an excuse, but he wasn't sure if that story would be believable or not. In the light of day, the scars might tell a different tale.
The evening had gone fairly well, he reflected. Don and Wilkes had shown up, and Don introduced Wilkes as an agent visiting from Atlanta, and politely asked Alan if he could stay for dinner, giving Wilkes a cover for the professors' benefit. Amita and Larry had seemed to think nothing of it, and the group had spent what Charlie had thought was a comfortable evening. Of course, not as comfortable as this.
"That was sooo nice," Amita murmured with a contented sigh. "God, I missed you."
"Come on," Charlie teased her. "You were working on the most exciting project on the planet, hobnobbing with the brightest minds in physics. You didn't think about home one bit."
"It was exciting, and intense," she admitted. "I'm sorry I didn't call more – between the time difference and everything we had going, it was hard sometimes. It didn't mean I didn't miss you."
"I know," he said softly, brushing another kiss across her forehead. The truth was, he'd had a hard enough time juggling her calls, especially while he'd been undercover, and unconscious… "I missed you too."
She sighed again; then yawned. "So what's up with Don?"
He froze in the darkness. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know," she said sleepily. "He just seemed quiet, tense; he was pacing a lot. That case with Atlanta - it must be a big one."
Charlie forced himself to relax. "Yeah – I guess it must be."
"You're not working on it?"
"He hasn't asked me to look at anything," Charlie demurred. "I'll have to ask him about it." She was stirring, getting into a comfortable position, and he gently pulled his arm out from under her shoulders.
"Mmmm," she murmured, already drifting off to sleep, leaving him lying there, staring up into the darkness. Was it still that obvious? He'd thought that things had seemed pretty routine that night – although, what was normal anymore? The evening had been normal, compared to how bad it had been, compared to an attempted strangling, a stabbing. Was that horrible frame of reference coloring his perception so much? Or was he only seeing what he wanted to see, and ignoring any evidence that Don still wasn't quite right? With those disturbing thoughts on his mind, he finally followed her into sleep.
Don stood in the doorway of the solarium, and watched dubiously as Wilkes set up his monitoring equipment. "Maybe I should sleep downstairs," he said.
Wilkes shook his head. "You've made a lot of progress over the last few days. Plus, I have the equipment hooked up and a sensor in your bedroom. If you get up, I'll know it."
Don scowled. "How do you know I'm making progress? You said yourself that with the devices they put in to restrict the current, you couldn't compare my progress to the original readings you took back at Cypress." Subconsciously, he ran his fingertips over the one of the lumps near his collarbone, where the batteries resided that could feed power to his brain, where they'd attached the devices that would reduce that power, as a safeguard, in case someone unknown turned it on.
"True," conceded Wilkes. He looked at Don, somberly. "But we're stuck with the situation, until you get those dampening devices removed and we can get true readings. To be truthful, I'm going more on how you're behaving than any readings I'm getting, right now."
Don grimaced. "And I behaved fine a few days ago, until I got up for a midnight stroll."
"Look," Wilkes sighed. "If you're trying to get me to tell you I'd leave you alone with him right now, I have to admit, I wouldn't allow it. But we need to try to put you in some controlled situations if you're going to make progress. Tomorrow after we leave here, we'll run another deprogramming session, and then we'll take a break. You can come over here for dinner; then go back to your apartment tomorrow night, or over to Robin Brooks' place."
Don's lips tightened and he looked away, then looked back at Wilkes and sighed. "Yeah. Just keep an eye on that monitor, okay?"
Dawn light seeped around the sides of the shades, and teased Charlie's eyelids open. He immediately tensed; he couldn't simply wake these days. He always jerked alert, waking to a feeling of impending dread until he got his bearings and managed to push the demons back down into his subconscious. This morning, he had help; Amita's warm body next to his was like a salve for his damaged psyche. She was still sleeping soundly, which was a good thing, Charlie realized; the scars on his chest were clearly visible in the morning light. Gently, carefully, he slid out of bed and grabbed jeans and a clean T-shirt and underwear. He'd slip into the shower and dress before she was up.
Clutching the clothes to his gut, wearing nothing but boxers, he eased quickly out through the doorway, shutting the door quietly behind him. The house was quiet, and so he was in for a shock as he turned to confront the unexpected figure in the hallway. Don's dark eyes stared back at him and Charlie's heart turned a somersault, and his brain with it, as a flashback hit him, full force. For a moment, he was back in the conference room, and Don was approaching him, knife raised, glinting, menacing. Charlie gasped and staggered backwards into the wall at the end of the hallway next to the door of his room, and froze, leaning against the wall for support.
It took another split second for him to process that Don wasn't moving; he was simply standing there, staring, with a stricken look on his face. Charlie followed his eyes; they were on his chest, riveted on the scars, and Charlie self-consciously pulled the rumpled wad of clothing upward to cover them, still trying to fight back a vision that seemed more real than the hallway around him. Finally gaining enough of his wits to move, he fumbled for the door of his room and escaped inside, closing it behind him. His heart was still hammering, and suddenly weak-kneed, he stumbled for the bed and sank onto it, trying to catch his breath, as he lowered the clothes to his lap with trembling hands. He was so shaken, he didn't realize that Amita had sat up and was staring at him oddly, anxiously. He could hear her voice as if from far away, then closer, louder. "Charlie? What's wrong?"
The real world came back to him and he bounced to his feet defensively, dropping his clothes in the process, and confusedly turned and bent to pick them up, trying to keep her from seeing his chest. "N-nothing," he managed. "Someone was in the bathroom, that's all. I have to wait."
He set the clothes in a pile and backed onto the bed, pulling the sheet up over him as he lay down, making sure he was covered before he faced her. Amita was staring at him suspiciously, and as he turned toward her, he released the edge of the sheet, which she promptly grabbed and pulled back down, frowning as she saw his chest. He pulled it up again, but not before she'd gotten a good look. "Come on," he said, smiling weakly, "I'm cold."
She looked at him, and he could see concern and a touch of irritation in her face; she knew he was trying to cover something up. "What is that, Charlie?"
"What?" he asked innocently. God, he was shaking. She had to see it. Hopefully she would think that he really was cold.
"Those scars on your chest. They didn't look like they're from an accident. What happened?"
"Glass shards," he mumbled, dropping his eyes.
She scowled at him, prettily. "Charlie, don't lie to me. I did a research project in high school on the properties of windshield glass. All windshields are designed to shatter in tiny pieces and are laminated so the pieces stick to the laminate, so the shards can't stab someone. You can't tell me that those wounds were made by windshield glass."
Charlie scowled back, pretending to be affronted, trying mightily to corral his reeling senses enough to carry on the conversation. "Well, it was. The rental car must have had an inferior brand replacement windshield. It really looks worse than it was."
He turned over on his side away from her, catching her skeptical expression as he did so, and felt her eyes boring into his back. It had been all he could do to collect himself enough to speak to her, to fight back the visions that had arisen, all too real, in his head.
Don stood still for a moment; then dazedly turned for his room. He'd been on the way back to his bedroom from a shower and had just stepped out the bathroom door when he'd confronted Charlie, and the terror on his younger brother's face had hit him like a blow. It was followed by an eyeful of the ugly scars on Charlie's chest, and he felt an odd sinking sensation in his heart as Charlie fumbled for the door and disappeared into his room. 'I did that,' was all Don could think, as he trudged, zombie-like for his room. 'I did that.'
He was so immersed in sorrow and guilt; he didn't even see Wilkes standing at the other end of the hallway, near the stairs, watching him. He made it to his bed and sank onto it, staring listlessly, unseeing, at the floor. 'I did that.' It wasn't clear to him whether he meant that he caused the look of terror on Charlie's face, or the livid scars, or both, but it didn't matter. He would live with the memory of that look, those scars, for the rest of his life.
End Chapter 46
A/N: Charlie's PTSD is starting to manifest itself - and will become very important later...