Mind Games

Chapter 61

See Chapter 1 for disclaimer

A/N: Thanks for the reviews; you are very kind.

Don didn't wake until they brought his breakfast tray. He'd slept through dinner and on through the night; the residual effects of the anesthesia, the painkillers, his injuries and exhaustion had finally caught up with him. His printouts had been neatly folded in half and laid on the table near him, and on top of them was a note from Robin, stating that she'd stayed until nine p.m., watching him sleep, and that she would be back the next day.

There was no sign of his father, and Don felt a twinge of uncertainty at his absence, but he imagined that Alan had been down to see him and Don had slept through his visits, too. The one overriding question in his mind was Charlie – he wondered how he was doing, wondered if he was awake yet – maybe even out of the ICU. He ate quickly; he was starving, but his speed was more due to a rising sense of disquiet, as if by dispatching his breakfast more quickly, he would get answers faster. He was nearly done when Alan appeared, accompanied by Jonathan Wilkes.

Don's face creased in a grin, but it faded as he saw Alan's face. His father looked terrible, exhausted and careworn. Don could feel something cold creep down his spine. "Dad – did you get any sleep last night?"

Alan hesitated and glanced at Wilkes, who looked somber. Don felt his heart rate start to accelerate. "How's Charlie?"

Alan cleared his throat and looked at Don, his face haggard. "Not good, Donnie. He – he's got an infection. They're trying to fight it -," his voice cracked, and he paused for a second. "They gave him a stronger antibiotic yesterday, but so far, we haven't seen any results. They have one more to try, but they wanted to give him a full day on this one, because after the next one, there is nothing else."

Don stared at him. Did his father just say 'nothing else'? "Is he … is he awake?"

"He opens his eyes sometimes, but he's not focusing, and he says a few words, but he's not making any sense – he's delirious. Sometimes I think he can hear us, and sometimes I'm not sure."

Don felt an odd sensation, as if he were hanging over the edge of a cliff. "Where is the infection – in his leg or the surgery site?"

Alan ran a hand over his face, swaying slightly on his feet, and Wilkes put a hand on his arm to steady him, and picked up the conversation. "It's in his bloodstream. They think he might have been carrying a resistant bug since his first hospital stay. Alan and I talked to Charlie's doctor, and to yours. If you're up for it, they're okay with you seeing him, as long as you wear an extra hospital gown and gloves, and are transported in a wheelchair. They don't believe his infection is transmissible by contact, but considering your recent surgery, they want to take precautions."

Don could feel his breakfast trying to climb back up his throat. "How serious is this?" His voice rose as he spoke, and he could hear threads of panic in it.

Neither of them replied for a moment, but Don could see the answer in their eyes. Wilkes glanced at Alan; then finally spoke again. "They want family members to see him today, if they can," he said, "just in case."

Don rode up in a wheelchair, staring blankly at the floor, the plastic envelope with the printouts back around his neck under the layered gowns, like a talisman. The euphoria of the evening before had been obliterated; the printouts themselves would mean nothing if Charlie… He stopped himself. He couldn't think that way; he refused to think it. It wasn't as if they'd tried everything; they still had another medication up their sleeve.

His heart dropped, his resolution wavered, as soon as they maneuvered him inside the room. Charlie looked terrible; his face flushed but dry, covered with stubble, his hair matted. His eyes were closed, but he was moving his head slightly side to side; in fact, his entire body was shifting about weakly as if trying to thrash. In spite of his weakness, they'd bound his hands to the bed rails with soft restraints to keep him from dislodging his IVs. Ice packs lay around his legs and along his sides; a disturbing testimony to how high his fever was running. Don could hear the footsteps of the orderly receding behind him, and then the squeak of rubber soles approaching but he didn't turn; he stared at Charlie, transfixed.

"He keeps trying to pull off his oxygen mask, and yank on his IV," said a quiet voice behind him, and Don twisted in his seat, to see Larry standing behind him, his intelligent blue eyes dulled with pain and fatigue. "He'll lie quietly for a while; then he'll become agitated. It's very difficult to watch. Amita and your father were here all night with him; I finally took her home to sleep for a few hours. The doctors tell us part of his disorientation is delirium from fever, and part of it is from the heavy pain medication. They just put him on an analgesic that is not quite as strong; the other was quite a depressant, and slowed his breathing and circulation. They are trying to improve the circulation; the delivery of oxygen to his leg."

Don turned his head back to look at Charlie. Bound like that, his leg immobilized, pulling against his restraints, he looked as though he was in a kind of medieval torture device. He muttered and his eyes flickered open; glazed slits of pain – the pupils darting back and forth. Don caught his breath. "Charlie."

Charlie blinked and froze for just a moment; then his eyes drifted shut again and he seemed to drop back into sleep, although Don could see his chest rising and falling too fast, with rapid, shallow breaths. The fever was consuming him, and there wasn't much of him to begin with. Don could feel dread creeping around his heart. "Push me a little closer," he urged Larry, who complied.

He sat silently for a moment, just looking at him; he heard Larry murmur something about tea, and then there was the soft squeak of rubber soles as the professor left the room. It was disturbing to know that they'd all been there keeping vigil, all night, all that morning, while Don slept. Why hadn't they woken him – and when had they found out that Charlie's condition was so serious? At the same moment he thought that, he knew. He remembered his father yesterday, when he walked in just before Don's surgery, his eyes had been watery, red-rimmed. Alan had known then and said nothing.

"Damn it, Dad," he growled softly, but he understood why his father had done it – he wanted Don to proceed with his surgery. It gave Don a glimmer of hope, and he tried to shake off the fear. Things couldn't be that serious, if they allowed him to wait until today to see him. Plus, they had another round of antibiotic to try. Charlie was going to pull through this – he had to pull through this. The infection he was fighting apparently dated back to the stabbing, and if it killed him, it meant that Don was responsible, after all…

He couldn't get his mind around that one. Instead, he just stared at Charlie, absently fingering the plastic envelope around his neck through his layers of gown, swallowing fear. He'd been thrilled at the results of his session with Wilkes, but they now meant little. What had he been so excited about anyway, he asked himself morosely? The fact that his new printout matched the old one? The fact that after all this, they were right back where they started? Well, a little improved; the bar over love was higher, but there were still the others, indicating a trace of dislike, and envy. He knew what he felt; the bottom line was, he still didn't know why he felt the way he did about Charlie.

He let his mind wander back as far as it could reach, as he thought about the bars on his printouts. Envy was probably there from the start, the usual envy one sibling feels for another. That normally would have lessened, maybe disappeared, and probably even did when they were very young, but the discovery of Charlie's genius might have caused it to resurface. He frowned. He didn't think he had been jealous of Charlie's capabilities – more than likely, if anything, he had been jealous of the attention they got him. Attention from his parents, attention from every adult, for that matter, who encountered him. Charlie had been a freak of nature, a force of nature – strike that, there was nothing natural about him. His mind was nothing short of phenomenal – how did one compete with that? It made Don wonder what their relationship would have been like, if Charlie had been normal – if his genius hadn't been in the way.

Charlie moaned softly, and Don's eyes darted back over to him. Charlie didn't look phenomenal now – he looked weak, fragile, in pain – too young to die, too young to suffer like this. He looked like his little brother - in his face, Don could see the maddening, frustrating, exuberant little boy that Don had loved when he was young – the competitor of his high school years – the brilliant stranger of their early adulthood - the collaborator and coworker of their recent years, partners in an uneasy truce, participants in a tentative friendship. As little as Don still understood him, he realized now that he loved him just as much as when they were children – he didn't need to understand their relationship to know that. The printout might not show progress, but Don knew he'd made a significant discovery, something he hadn't known for certain before all of this started – he loved his brother, in spite of all the walls between them, in spite of all the baggage they carried.

He reached out and touched Charlie's hand; the gesture was awkward considering the fact that his brother's hand was tied to the bedrail, and Don's own hand was in a glove. "Charlie, please," he pleaded softly. "You can't go now. You need to fight this."

Charlie's head turned at the sound of his voice, but his eyes didn't open; instead, his brows drew up and in, as an expression of fear crept across his face. "Please," he moaned softly, at first Don thought he was mimicking him. He realized in the next instant he couldn't have been more wrong as Charlie implored, "Please, no…don't …," He twisted in the bed, pulling at the restraints.

Don fought down rising nausea; he could only imagine what nightmarish visions populated Charlie's semi-conscious state. "Charlie, it's okay," he said softly, his own voice filled with a plea. It's okay, God please, let it be okay. Please let him live; please don't let it be me in his dreams…

He could hear footsteps behind him, but he ignored them. "Charlie, listen to me – you're okay. Relax-," Charlie was growing more agitated, twisting; arching his back.

"No!" He rasped. His breath was ragged, harsh.

Wilkes' voice came from behind Don, regretful, but firm. "Don, you should probably go."

"No." Don could hear his voice shake. "I just got here – I'm not leaving."

"Please stop… " Charlie begged. His eyes had flickered open, but were focused on nothing in the room; his face was contorted with fear.

"Charlie-," Don spoke firmly, fighting to keep his voice calm. Not me; he's not talking about me…

"Donnie." Now his father's voice came from behind him; pain-filled.

"Don, come on." Wilkes commanded, his voice growing firmer. Don felt hands on his wheelchair, starting to exert force, and he leaned forward, beginning to rise. If Wilkes wanted to take his wheelchair, he could – Don intended to stay.

"Please stop, I'm sorry -," Charlie was half-frantic, thrashing side-to-side with his eyes closed, tears coming down his face, and Don made it partway to his feet, intent on comforting him, on making it stop, when the words came that were like a knife to his heart. "God, Don, no, please…"

Don froze; standing on unsteady legs in front of his wheelchair, then slowly sank into it, staring at Charlie. He sat there, not moving, his shoulders slumped, and Wilkes turned the chair and started to push it out of the room. As Wilkes turned him to face Alan, Don didn't look at his father; he simply stared dully ahead, not bothering to hide the heartbreak in his eyes.

Twisted visions…garbled voices… Charlie's subconscious teemed with them, flitting in-and-out; now close, now far away. They'd been distant at first, sounds too faint to recognize, buried by the heavy painkillers, sights made non-existent by closed lids. He didn't know or understand that they had changed his pain medication to something less potent in order to improve his breathing and circulation; all he knew was that the sounds began to grow louder, and as his eyes began to flicker open, sights appeared. His ears and eyes were functioning, but the pathways to his brain were not – they were warped by fever and the medication. Faces were there, and then they were not – his father, Amita, Larry, Colby, David, Wilkes – the actual faces fought for recognition among the images in his fevered dreams. He wasn't sure which of them were real and which weren't; he wasn't coherent enough to make the distinction. One face, above all, was with him – Don.

His face was the most confusing; sometimes smiling, sometimes transformed with rage. Don's visage ran through the settings of his dreams – following him upstairs to his bedroom, sitting with him in the living room, chasing him through gray mist. Charlie felt uneasy whenever the face appeared, even when it wore a smile, and unreasonable terror would shoot through him when the expression was angry. Invariably, he'd run, up the stairs, out the front door, through the trees, and no matter where he went, Don would be behind him, calling his name. Behind Don, another face would lurk in the shadows, the man from New Orleans, watching, waiting.

In spite of the fear, however, there was a sense of yearning, a pull toward his brother - a sense of sadness, of guilt, of love. And when Don smiled, as uneasy as he was, Charlie wanted to go to him, instead of running…

Through it all was the pain. It was reduced by the new painkillers, but not vanquished, and there was a constant, mind-bending agony that started in his left hip and lower abdomen, and culminated in the torture that was his left leg. He shifted and turned, trying to escape it, to escape his pursuers, but his left leg was too heavy to move and the branches grabbed at his hands…He writhed, desperate for release. 'God, please, someone help me…'

Alan and Amita stood, staring through the ICU doorway as the doctors consulted. They already had the latest vital signs; in spite of the pain medication and ice packs, Charlie's temperature was up, along with his respiration rate. Alan couldn't imagine anyone more pleasant or less intimidating than Doctor Safak, but he was beginning to hate the sight of trim tiny man, because with him invariably came bad news. He stiffened as Safak turned and came toward them now, his slight form exuding politeness and apology. Beside him, he could hear Amita take in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, unsteadily.

"I'm afraid we are not seeing results with this antibiotic." Safak's voice was gentle, but he came straight to the point. "I am going to go ahead and start him on one more. The good news is the circulation seems slightly improved to his leg. He is losing strength, I fear, however; and he will need it yet, while we apply this last type of medication. I know it seems that he doesn't understand you, but he can hear you, and if he can process any of what you say it may help him. Stay with him, speak to him; encourage him, even if it seems he does not comprehend." He reached out and patted Amita on her shoulder in a fatherly gesture, as he saw her eyes brim with tears. "Have faith, little one, fight with him. This is not over."

She choked back tears and nodded. Alan put his arm around her and she leaned against him as Safak turned down the hall, and the remaining doctors filed out of the room, their faces somber.

End Chapter 61