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39 – CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE – 1,098^39

Another fit of coughing shook Charlie and kept him breathless. With a concerned gaze, Don watched both his brother and the purulent phlegm.

"And the doctor really said that was normal?" he asked once more with a furrowed forehead.

"Yeah, he did," Charlie croaked. He kept himself bent forward and was still occupied with bringing his tickly throat under control.

"Hey," Don said gently, but he didn't know how to go on. He had laid one hand on Charlie's back, but he still felt uncomfortably far away from him. A residual bout of coughing took all of Charlie's attention and he couldn't do anything. Don was sitting helplessly at his brother's bedside watching him struggle. He dimly wondered if the others would have been able to do something, however, they had gone half an hour ago to take a rest. During the past few days, Charlie's condition had been getting better and better. At first that was only what the doctors told him, for in Don and the other's eyes, he still looked more dead than alive. Now, however, they dared leave him for a couple of hours without fear keeping them in its claws. Don had seized the opportunity and stayed despite his exhaustion. This way, he had his brother all to himself for a while.

Finally, the coughing subsided, but not so the agony on Charlie's face. Silence fell upon them, though it was not completely uncomfortable.

Don watched his little brother. He looked weary; the coughing wore him out. But at least he was out of the woods. They had made it. Charlie's face was pale except for his reddened cheeks, his eyelids were heavy, and he had dark circles under his glassy eyes. He had beads of sweat on his forehead. However, the fever was retreating. Everything was going to be fine.

Isn't it? Don's gaze rested on the haggard figure whose exhaustion wasn't caused only by physical factors. Charlie had experienced mortal fear for four seemingly endless days. Don knew that not one of them was going to get over the past few weeks so easily.

A wave of overwhelming rage gripped him. There was a hatred surging up inside him with a fierceness he had seldom felt before, a hatred against the creatures that had done all that to them. They'll pay for that.

"What do you mean?"

Don's gaze focused again on Charlie who was looking directly at him, although a bit wearily. He hadn't even noticed that he had spoken the words out loud. He swallowed. "They're gonna pay for it, Charlie, I promise." The words had hardly left his mouth when they already sounded incredibly pathetic.

Charlie hadn't missed that either. The corners of his mouth were slightly lifted. "You'd better keep the volume down when you say such things. For that sounds rather like vigilante justice to me. And at the moment there's a whole bunch of people around this place who are linked to the FBI." Once again Charlie was occupied with coughing. It had been a miracle to Don that his brother had been able to say three entire sentences without interruption.

Don tried to keep the admittedly rather one-sided conversation going when he thought the cough had passed. "Have David and Colby been yet?"

However, the coughing hadn't passed yet and Charlie kept writhing while he answered by nodding.

Finally, the attack was over and Charlie leaned back wearily into his pillows. He simply looked miserable, as Don was forced to notice. However, he was also aware that the cough wasn't even the most agonizing thing for Charlie. It was only the element that was most obvious to Don and all the others and showed Charlie's weakened state the most distinctly.

"How can you even stop long enough to fall asleep?"

Charlie grinned wryly. "I can't," he answered with a hoarse and tight voice, "but the cough is exhausting enough to make me tired."

There were moments when Don preferred a less honest answer, and this was one of them. Concerned, he looked at his little brother, thinking intensely how he could help him when Charlie signaled his refusal.

"It's okay. I mean, considering the alternative I'm really feeling great." The coughing attack that followed upon that seemed to be mocking his words.

0 – 0 – 0

With slight, though un-ignorable wistfulness, Larry watched the plane get smaller and smaller. Megan was flying back to Washington; her remaining holiday was over. Now he was alone again.

However, he knew that a second farewell would follow upon this one. And he would lose his best friend not only to the other end of the States, but to the past.

Up till now, Charlie hadn't made any move to reject him. And although he was improving at a breath-taking speed, he had to remove the chaos of his thoughts first. At some point in time, however, he and the others would notice that everything was Larry's fault. And Larry didn't intend to wait until that thought would occur to them. Even if he loathed himself for his actions, he still had a modicum of dignity that he was going to keep. He was going to take the first step away from Charlie himself and through that maintain everything under control until their lives took separate paths.

He entered Charlie's sickroom and wasn't very surprised to find that he was not alone; Alan and Amita were there too. Larry knew that Charlie had hardly been alone for a moment the few days since his rescue. Still he'd hoped that he and Charlie would be alone when he bid him farewell to go wherever his future path might lead him.

In any case there was no way he could avoid this. He had resolved to do it now and he was going to see it through.

"Charles."

The three of them looked at him in surprise; the greeting wasn't the way it usually was.

"I've come to say good bye to you."

Charlie abruptly pulled himself a bit more upright and flinched when the movement painfully reminded of the fracture in his knee. Larry saw this as confirmation of his decision.

"What's that supposed to mean? Where are you going?" The young professor's voice sounded hoarse and the words once again ended in a coughing fit. Although the attacks weren't as bad as they had been shortly before, they still evoked compassionate looks, which Charlie tried to ignore as well as he could.

Larry breathed in deeply. So this was the moment of truth. "Well, I've realized that it was my fault what happened to you. And I'm ready to take the necessary action."

"Your fault? What gave you that stupid idea?" Alan asked in bewilderment and Charlie was thankful that he didn't have to speak again. He could still hardly get out a sound of his throat and most times his sentences ended, just as they had now, in a painful and exhausting coughing attack.

Maybe Larry too was glad when someone spoke instead of him; in any case he didn't interrupt Amita. "Larry is probably talking about the fact that we failed to find Charlie's prison." A fleeting side-glance at Larry seemed to confirm her theory and she continued, "Theoretically we should have been able to find the hiding-place. Or more to the point I should have been able to. It was my program that showed the mobsters' localities. There must have been a flaw somewhere in it and that's why it didn't show that hiding-place. If I hadn't made a mistake with that program, we would have found the hiding-place much sooner and..."

While she had been speaking, her voice had lost more and more strength, and tears again had welled up in her eyes. Tears that she had been suppressing for the past few days, since Charlie had been improving. Now they came to the surface as Amita knew exactly that it wasn't Larry whose fault it was, but she hers. She briefly glanced up to him noticing his strange look in which, strangely, there was a bit of newly born hope.

"And if you hadn't had the program, you wouldn't have got anywhere," Charlie completed her sentence when she didn't go on. He had tried to sound gentle, but his sore throat rather ruined that intention. "Besides, I'm fine," he added. "So stop telling yourselves that; it's not your fault."

"That's exactly what I'd say too," Alan now joined in. "I mean, you at least stayed here and did the best you could to help Charlie. I, however..." For a moment, Alan couldn't go on. Then he forced himself to continue, "I, however, just left and let my sons down."

Charlie looked at his father with an incredulous look in his eyes. He had thought that his father was going to support him in his attempt to refute those idiotic acknowledgments of guilt. And instead his father was now including himself as part of that group.

"Now stop it, will you?" he squeezed the words out of his throat. He frowned as if that could help him understand why suddenly everybody was trying to blame himself or herself. "What's up with you? None of you are to blame; how could it! I would've thought you'd think a bit more rationally!"

Alan shook his head. "Maybe you can forgive us and I can also see that the others really did the best they could. But you can't clear me of my guilt."

Charlie was already wondering how he could refute that idiotic theory with as few words as possible when he saw Larry shake his head. "I would never have thought that you too..." Larry fell silent, but since he was staring into the void in front of him with high concentration, he missed the interest with which the others were watching him.

"It looks as though –" Again he interrupted himself as if he were once more examining his train of thoughts. When he finally went on, the others were surprised to find the trace of a smile playing around his lips. "It looks as though we made the scientist's favorite mistake." He looked up and Charlie noticed that the worry lines on his forehead had all of a sudden nearly disappeared. And Larry on his part had to realize that the others didn't understand what he was talking about. "Human beings," he therefore elaborated, "tend to, in their unlimited over-estimation of themselves, have the opinion they can change the world's course. But we forget that we're only an atom in a huge and unbelievably complex universe."

A moment of silence passed before Amita asked, unemotionally as she hadn't been for days: "And that means what?"

"That means," Charlie answered instead of his friend, "that Larry agrees with me. None of you is guilty in any possible way."

That was followed by silence and the three of them were abandoning themselves to the hope that maybe they had really made a mistake by blaming themselves and that Charlie and the others wouldn't reject them when the door opened. It was David, and behind him they could see a rather grumpy looking Don.

"Hey, Charlie, how're you doing?" David inquired. He didn't seem to be perfectly comfortable with the situation. Maybe he could feel his superior's eyes on his back for Don looked as if he was about to attack him like a rabid dog.

"Hi. Uh, I'm fine, really. Getting exponentially better."

"That's good. Listen..." He stopped for a second before he decided to tell Charlie despite Don's reluctance. "We've received information from the powers that be. You'll probably be informed sometime soon, but Colby and I wanted to tell you straight away; we thought it might cheer you up. They finally finished the investigation, you've got your security clearance back."

Everyone in the room, apart from the agents, were wide-eyed with surprise and Charlie at first didn't know what to say. However, Don's sharp voice would have cut him off short anyway: "That's merely a formality, Charlie. Of course it's clear that you won't work for the FBI again."

Charlie furrowed his forehead. "Why shouldn't I?"

Don snorted angrily. "Do I really have to explain that to you? Look around! You nearly died during this stupid case and now those pencil pushers pretend nothing happened at all!"

Charlie shook his head in bewilderment. "One I didn't die and two that doesn't have to do anything with my security clearance."

"It has, Charlie, because it's for this very reason that this nearly killed you, that you're not going to work for the FBI again."

Charlie pushed himself a bit more upright in his bed. He could now also sense the anger gradually welling up inside him. "I might be wrong, but I keep thinking that it's my decision for whom I work and for whom I don't!"

"If you're –" Don started, but David cut him off by drowning him out.

"As I said, Charlie, I just wanted to tell you the decision. I've got to get back to the office now. So... keep getting better."

He had nearly left the room when Larry also jumped up from his seat. "Wait, David, I'll walk you downstairs."

Amita hesitated, but she didn't really want to become involved in the situation either. "I'm coming with you."

Alan was left behind in a dilemma. He didn't think it was a good idea to leave his sons alone now, but he also thought that they should settle this thing among themselves. He didn't want to side with one of them. On the one hand he'd prefer if at least one of his sons would dedicate himself to a less dangerous job, on the other hand he also knew that he had raised his sons to make their own decisions. And although Don wasn't really acting very peacefully right now, Alan knew that his eldest would make sure that his brother wouldn't overexert himself.

"I hope you're able to discuss like grown-up people," he therefore said before he too left the room.

The two brothers were left behind. The others' departure had taken the wind out of their sails, but still neither of them was ready to give in.

Charlie inhaled deeply and immediately had to suppress the cough again. "I'm going to continue working on cases, Don, no matter if you're okay with that or not," he then made it clear.

Charlie could see that Don was still angry, though his voice was cool and controlled and sounded final. "You're a free man, Charlie. You can do and not do whatever you want. But you won't work with my team again. It's my decision whom I let work with us, and I won't take the risk any longer of having to tell Dad that I'm guilty of your death."

Charlie had the feeling he had missed something. His forehead was furrowed. "Did Dad say something like that?" he asked in confusion. "That you were guilty of what happened?"

Don snorted and a small, joyless smile appeared on his face. "Of course not, you know Dad."

"Right, Dad is honest." When he realized that Don wouldn't change his mind, he resorted a bit more to begging. "Come on, Don, I just had that discussion with the others. What happened isn't your fault."

"You were in my charge, Charlie. And damn it, I was responsible for you!"

"Don – it was the mafia. What were you supposed to do? As far as I've understood things until now, you really did everything possible to bring me back. And I mean, you made it! I'm here Don, I'm fine!"

"This time. But maybe next time you won't."

Charlie rolled his eyes. "Maybe I'll get run over on the street before there'll be a next time. Or I'll fall off the ladder or I'll get in the middle of a gang shooting or –"

"Could you maybe just stop that?"

Rather unprepared, Charlie noticed Don's somehow agonised features, and fell abruptly silent before trying to deliver his opinion with a bit less dramatic words. "What I intended to say is that you can't protect me from everything, Don. And believe it or not, I'm grown-up and I myself am responsible for my actions. And therefore no one – except for you – thinks of blaming you for what happened. Heavens, you even tried to convince me to go to Baltimore, so it's rather me who's to blame for everything. You know, I realized that what I did wasn't very prudent, but I wanted to help, to do the right thing, so I'd rather shift the blame onto the mafia if you don't mind."

Don looked resolutely ahead in silence. His features were still serious, but his anger had already passed. When Charlie had to cough once again, Don, without turning his head, glanced at him, watching the so fragile-looking figure. He had difficulty in believing that he had been able to do such a thing to his brother. However, he had even more difficulty in believing that he wasn't to blame. But at least it seemed as if Charlie was willing to forgive him...

Charlie's cough subsided, and since Don was still silent, he began anew. "I mean, you really did great work. to be honest, I had already given up hope that you would ever find me. The chances were one to... in any case little enough. And eventually you found me." When Don still didn't look up, he tried to disperse the tension in the room. "'But you are aware that by that you broke a law regarding the principles of probability, aren't you? You may be glad that the international court for mathematics won't call you to account."

Don felt a slight smile creep onto his lips, though it was caused by Charlie's attempt to distract him from his guilt. "Though in that case, some of your math friends would also have to appear in court," he answered.

"Amita and Larry? I knew they'd help you."

"Not only them. Some students also. One of them described Ivanov. And three others described the vehicle in which you were... which they used to take you." Don had to clear his throat. It tightened when he thought of the image of some mobsters carrying his little brother out of CalSci into a dark van.

"And the description of that vehicle was enough to find the mobsters?"

This time Don laughed, even if it sounded very joyless. "You won't believe it, but they managed to remember the plate. 4 PID 434. I wouldn't have thought there'd be more –"

Charlie interrupted him. "Are you serious? 4 PID 434? With that you again violated the principles of probability. A pi-car that abducts a math professor, that's really a bit over the top."

Don could hardly believe it. Was everybody around him crazy? Or was that just the world where his brother lived? "Pi-car," he repeated drily.

"Of course! Four to the four divided by three to the four, in earlier times that was quite a popular value for pi, although the deviation of approximately zero point six per cent is of course –"

"Charlie?"

The younger brother immediately fell silent. "Yeah?"

Don's answer came accompanied by a shaking of his head and the trace of a real smile. "You're really not normal."

"Normal would be boring, wouldn't it?" Charlie said with self-confidence. If he hadn't still been so immensely weak, he might have sounded as he'd been in earlier days. "But how did things go on then? Did a witness see the pi-car at the beach when they brought me to the hiding-place?"

Don realized that Charlie was trying to sound carefree and normal, but he couldn't banish the exhaustion from his voice. "No, the car only helped us to find the mobsters," Don explained patiently. Charlie was just about to comment on the 'only' when he thought he knew what his brother had meant by it. "When a major part of the mobsters were arrested, José Sanchez called us and told us about the hiding-places. He was also the one to lead us to that one at the beach."

Charlie nodded slightly and slowly. The moment of lightness of their conversation had given way to the realization that Charlie wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for Sanchez' help. He could feel the tiredness coming over him again, but he forced himself to hang in just a little bit longer; the answers to his questions were too important to him to fall asleep now. "What will happen to him now?"

"Since he'd been forced by the mafia to do the crimes he committed, he probably won't have to fear legal consequences, provided that he testifies against them. However, he's likely to be deported and to be put in witness protection in Mexico. However, as it seems he wanted to return to Mexico anyway after everything that happened to him here and with what he might face if some mobsters decide to take revenge on him – whether he's in witness protection or not."

Again Charlie nodded deliberately, and some seconds passed in silence before he asked his next question. The words only came slowly out of his mouth and weren't more than a tired murmur, but he struggled to remain awake. "Can I talk to him?"

Don smiled. It was very convenient that Sanchez too had already asked about Charlie. He would bring Sanchez with him sometime when Charlie was better; after all he was no danger to him (which didn't mean that Don would let them out of his sight for as much as a second). "I think we can arrange that," he replied quietly with regard to Charlie's closed eyes. He doubted that his brother had heard the answer. It didn't matter though. Charlie would surely remember the question and ask him once more. Don would be there when he woke up.