Alright, time to say good-bye. This is the last chapter. 'Bout time.
Thanks to everyone who read the whole story, and thanks to all those who left a comment to tell me what I could do better and to encourage me. Everything was very appreciated :)
notsing: thanks again for your comment! I figure we disagree quite a lot on the Charlie-angle, but nevertheless you made me wonder if Charlie's behaviour of not following Don's orders is really condemnable in such a grade. I beg to differ, because Don didn't tell Charlie to leave as his superior, but as his brother, because Don wasn't thinking about the case then, but only worried for his brother's safety. I think we can agree that Charlie's behaviour wasn't fair against Don, but I wouldn't say he put the team into danger. (Feel free to disagree :) )
Please enjoy!
40 – CHAPTER FORTY – 1,097^40
"Wouldn't that be something for –" Don's menacing look made David stop short.
Colby watched his colleague lower his glance nervously. That, however, didn't mean by any means that he also would give up. "Come on, Don," he tried to convince him. "David's right. We had similar problems in the past and every time Charlie helped us with them. He'd find trends and criminals easily and much faster than we would. He'd predict their actions and everything, you know that."
Don sighed. Of course he knew. And they really had to make some progress.
For two days now, they'd been searching for three escaped convicts. Two of them had done time for killing during a robbery, the other for kidnap in order to demand a ransom. They were known to be violent and had already left behind a bloody trace for Don's team. However, the trace, or rather the traces, all led to nowhere. And if they didn't use all the help they could get, that would border on being accessories to murder.
And still. Don didn't want to ask Charlie. Of course, his brother was once again fine physically and he'd been teaching for two weeks now. It was only a matter of time until he would be working again for some investigating agency as a consultant. But not for Don's team. Don had decided not to involve his brother in his work ever again. Originally, he'd been determined to keep to his intention. Now, however, he wondered for how much longer he'd be able to resist. It was a fact that they needed his help. And after all, this was merely about analysis. Charlie would probably not be in danger at all...
Probably.
The decision would have been much easier for Don if he could have been certain that Charlie would refuse his request. Charlie had experienced horrible things during this mafia case; he'd just barely escaped from the claws of death; it would have been perfectly understandable if he hadn't wanted to do anything with all the FBI ever again. Unfortunately however, the exact opposite was the case. Subconsciously, Don was aware that his little brother would never refuse one of his requests, even worse – Charlie had already asked him if they needed his help, now that he had his security clearance back.
Don sighed heavily. There was no sense in wondering and brooding. It was most sensible to ask for his help.
With unusual nervousness, Don waited for Charlie to pick up the phone. He didn't know what to say. Maybe, if he did it properly he might perhaps word it so that Charlie wouldn't even want to help him. The right words at the right time, a reserved tone... However, deep down Don knew that it was hopeless. He knew that Charlie was literally waiting for a new case, though until now Don had successfully got rid of him.
It had hurt him, however. Hurt both of them. Although Don had come to the conclusion that he was doing the right thing it had by no means been easy for him to reject Charlie's offers. One, he remembered cases very well they had solved together and remembered how much easier many things became as soon as Charlie joined them. And two he missed working with his brother.
Suddenly, Don noticed that the ringing tone still hadn't stopped. A queasy feeling, growing fast with intensity, spread in his stomach. Something couldn't have happened, not again...
The phone in Charlie's office remained un-answered, and he couldn't even get a connection to the Craftsman. All of a sudden Don had a terrible feeling of Déjà-vu. They had abducted him again...
While Don drove to his brother's house, all sorts of possible and impossible horror scenarios rolled through his mind while at the same time he was trying to tell himself that there was probably a totally logical explanation. Maybe Charlie had already gone to bed? Or he hadn't heard his mobile? Maybe he was once more caught up in his world of numbers? Or he wasn't there anymore; they had taken him with them, or worse than taken him... His fears changed, but the fear remained.
He first tried the garage. Since his father had wanted to meet with his colleague Stan tonight, there was only Charlie to be found. And in that case it was here where he had the best chance.
He pushed the door to the garage open, listening intently. He held his much too fast breath in order to sense possible danger in time.
There it was. Breathing in fits and starts, shallow and irregular.
Deciding that attack was the best form of defence, Don pressed the light switch, but nothing happened. "Is there anybody in here?" he finally asked, ready to attack.
"D... D-Don?"
A part of the tension fell away from him while he rapidly made his way through the dark garage towards that thin, frightened voice. "What's going on, Charlie? What happened?" he asked with soft urging, trying to find his way through the black chaos.
"I... I..." The younger man fell silent, and finally Don reached him. Charlie was sitting on the floor leaning against the wall. Don squatted down next to him.
"Hey." Softly, he laid his hand on his brother's upper arm. "What's going on, Charlie? Why aren't you answering your mobile?"
"T-the lights off," Charlie stammered with feverish energy and he began to hiccough. "A-and I th-thought... I thought they'd be... they'd be here again..."
Don understood immediately. After all that had happened he couldn't hold it against Charlie that he was still afraid of the mafia. Those bastards had attacked his little brother twice in the dark from behind. This time, however, it was only their demons that were attacking and more importantly: this time Don was here.
"Calm down, Charlie. I'm here. I'm sure this was only a power cut. Nobody's doing anything to you."
"I – I know!" Charlie sobbed and a dull sound made Don start. It took him a second until he figured out that Charlie had hit his fist on the floor. "I kn-know th-that the mafia isn't th-there anymore," he continued and was obviously trying hard to regain control over himself. And if it were only through irritated impatience that he regained it at least this way he didn't sound that lost anymore.
What he said wasn't entirely true. Bolshoyov, the big boss, was still free because they just hadn't been able to prove anything against him along with some other mobsters. However, Charlie was right in stating that the mafia was shattered and that it would probably take some time for them to become powerful enough to attack again. And considering Charlie's obvious current psychological state, Don preferred giving more importance to this second point of view.
"Everything's fine again," Don tried to soothe him with such a gentle voice that it gave even himself goose-bumps.
Just with Charlie it didn't seem to be working. "I know!" Charlie retorted, this time more violently, and he stood abruptly.
While Don struggled to get up he noticed that Charlie was leaning against the wall, evidently in order to get rid of vertigo. He tried to support him, but his hand was brushed aside with a brusque gesture. Vulnerability gave way to anger. "Leave me alone!"
It is probably a characteristic among siblings to do always the opposite of which one is asked. In any case Don now had an even tighter grip around his brother's upper-arm. "What's going on with you, Charlie? Talk to me," he demanded hauntingly
Something went wrong, however. Charlie ripped himself away from Don again. "I can do this on my own, okay? You can go back to your work, I don't need any help!"
Charlie's words told Don that the exact opposite was the case. For an instance, impatience tried to well up inside him – why did Charlie make it so difficult on him? – but also with his next deep breath Don became aware that it wasn't viciousness or something similar that was behind Charlie's actions, but desperation.
After all the overwhelming events, his brother had been back on his feet considerably faster than anyone would have thought. He had acted as if nothing had happened and had, apparently to merely alleviate their preoccupation, after a short hesitation accepted the advice that had been given him from several people and had consulted a psychiatrist.
With that, however, his cooperation had hit its abrupt end. He didn't talk about what had happened, avoided every kind of discussion and rushed back into normal life at a frightening speed. As soon as he had got got his fingers on a laptop, he had started to draft a plan in order to solve, or at least to minimize, the drug problem in Mexico as a favor for José Sanchez – regardless of all the people saying that he was loading too much work on himself. Out of gratitude to Sanchez, Don had soon helped him; he knew Charlie's stubbornness, and working together with him at least gave him a pretext to be with Charlie as long as possible and to keep an eye on him.
However, this idée fixe hadn't been the end of it. As soon as it his health had allowed him to go back to work, he was standing in front of his students, and not even a week later he had asked Don if they didn't need his help in one of their cases. Without even thinking about it, Don had said 'no'. Charlie was rushing things, and Don sure as hell wasn't going to help him with that.
He had a certain idea of what was going on inside him. He knew his brother. He knew that Charlie hated to be treated like a child and he knew from experience that his father tended to such kind of treatment, especially after events like the past ones.
Charlie, however, hadn't let Alan get to him. He had behaved strongly. And most of the people around him had believed him.
Not Don. Big Brother knew that Charlie was still suffering. And if he hadn't known before, today's evening demonstrated it. Charlie was currently so mentally unstable that one came to wonder why he hadn't broken yet.
For an instant, Don's heart stopped. Maybe he already was broken?
In any case Don had to be very careful and cautious if he wanted to help him and not cause further damage. He chose his words with care, and thus some further tense seconds passed.
"Okay, Charlie. Okay. If you say you don't need help, I believe you."
Don would have given a lot to have some more light now, but even in the darkness he felt that Charlie relaxed a bit. He hoped that it wasn't too early to get ready for the next step. And that he wasn't walking into a trap. "But we do need your help," he confessed, and it was indeed not easy for him. Not only was he feeling that he was endangering his brother once again, but in a strangely egoistical way it also hurt his pride.
It was worth it, however. Through the darkness, Don could just make out that Charlie was looking at him, searching his eyes. "Really? I can help you?"
Don swallowed. His throat was dry as if his sub-consciousness was trying to prevent him from answering by leaving him high and dry. "Yeah," he then confirmed. "Yeah, Charlie, you could really help us." The worst thing about it was that he was even telling the truth.
"Okay," was the answer, but Don thought he could still hear some mistrust in it. "Okay. I can do that."
"Very well." Don hesitated, but he had to say it now: "You see? I admitted that we need help, and I didn't lose face, did I?"
In the light-absent environment, Don believed he could see Charlie's eyes literally flash. But maybe that was only what was beginning to dawn in his mind.
"What's that supposed to mean? I don't need help!"
"Uh, no?"
"No! And now just leave it at that! I told you I'm fine!"
"Yeeah, Charlie, the thing is, is that no one believes that."
"I'm not as vulnerable and helpless as you all think all the time!"
Don thought his brother was about to attack him, and he found it was high time to work a bit at calming him down. For that, however, he first had to wipe away the anger that had flared up inside him during the argument. "Okay! I'm just wondering why you're sitting here curled up on the floor in a dark garage!"
Charlie was trembling, and it wasn't from fear, but from repressed anger. Okay, maybe a little bit of fear. But couldn't they just leave him alone for a minute? He was there again, wasn't he; he was fine; he could handle that! Why did nobody trust him? Why did nobody believe in him? How could they know more than he that he would never be able to cope with it alone, that he would never cope with it anyhow, that the demons were going to haunt him forever...
"Just... just leave me alone for a while, will you?"
"No, Charlie, I won't. The things you've been through... Heaven, I read the report, after all! The things you –"
Don stopped short. This really wasn't easy. Very wisely, O'Connagh hadn't let Don take Charlie's statement, and despite initial disagreements Don by now was very grateful for that. After the things he'd had to read... Not only the things he already knew, the second abduction and that helplessness in that hole, all the suffering in such cruelly sober writing... For about four days, Charlie had been thinking he was going to die in that lonely and cold and dark tomb, whether he was going to die of thirst, of hunger, of drowning or of the fever. Don didn't even want to imagine his feelings of desperation and helplessness.
"A bit of post traumatic stress is totally normal, Charlie," he now said, trying hard to maintain his calm voice. "But the way you're handling it..."
"I've already consulted a psychiatrist! What else do you want?"
He didn't have to think long about the answer. "We want you to become the person you were before."
It seemed as if he had said exactly the wrong thing. "I'm already trying!" Charlie shouted, and now the desperation was clearly perceivable in his voice. And he even started, to Don's displeasure, to limp about in the dark and not exactly well-organised garage. For Don, it was nothing less than a miracle that he didn't fall over a cardboard box or a chair and break his neck.
"I've been trying the whole time to become normal again!" Charlie continued his lament. "But it doesn't work! You've seen it with your own eyes; I can't even fix the light when the electricity fails! As soon as... as soon as there's only... As soon as there's anything that makes me think of the mafia, the lights in my head go out! I stop thinking, do you understand? And then there's only this panic and I just can't... It just doesn't stop! All day long people keep asking me how I'm doing! Nobody thinks I'm capable of anything anymore; I've simply become a burden you carry along with yourself! Everyone puts on kid gloves first before even looking at me! And all those pitying looks... Damn it, why can't it just stop?"
Breathing heavily, he stood before his big brother. He could sense that he had just divulged much about his inner life, among it a lot that he had wanted to conceal. And that was exactly what made him even angrier: Why couldn't he just cope with it?
"You can't expect to shake off everything just overnight, Charlie. The things that happened were awful. You need time to come to terms with everything."
Charlie's trembling became more severe as soon as he repressed his emotions. "You... you didn't talk to anyone about it."
"I did," Don contradicted simply. "To Bradford." It currently didn't matter that it hadn't been himself, but the psychiatrist who insisted.
Charlie was reduced to silence for some seconds and Don grasped his opportunity. "Nobody thinks that you're weak or a burden for us, Charlie. On the contrary." He let his words take their effect before something else occurred to him, and he continued a bit more lightly, "God, without your help we would never have been able to hunt the mobsters down! I think that makes it obvious that you're no burden to us." He paused. "You should give yourself some slack and not be so hard on yourself."
Charlie still didn't seem convinced. And he was still filled with this nervous energy. "You don't have that," he stated. When Don didn't understand, he continued: "This irrational fear. That... that any moment some guys could jump out from behind the black-boards and... You don't have that," he repeated.
Don laughed, incredulous. "I do," he contradicted. "I certainly do, Chuck."
Charlie was frowning. His eyes showed doubt. "And what are you afraid of?"
Don didn't answer at once. He had a lot of answers he could give, but he didn't like revealing any of it. It wasn't without reason that Charlie considered him fearless. For until now, Don had always managed to conceal what he was afraid of quite well.
This time, however, he couldn't keep his silence. This wasn't about his pride; this was more important. He had to help Charlie to get back up on his feet. He had to help him get some help. "For example when I called you and nobody answered." He had to clear his throat; this was a high wire act: a light tone, but a serious facial expression. The light tone somehow got lost in the process of speaking. "I was afraid that you had disappeared, that the mafia had abducted you again. And..." he hesitated, but finished what he had begun. "And I'm afraid that you might not be able to cope with what happened and that you might do something because you think you couldn't talk to anyone about it."
That hat hit home. Charlie was silent. For a long moment. At least long enough to calm down again. Before he answered, he lowered himself down to the floor, groaning softly and being careful with his knee that was still healing in a support bandage. His voice was perfectly controlled, almost resigned when he turned towards Don. "What am I supposed to do?"
God, considering that Charlie wasn't helpless, he sounded awfully lost.
Don suppressed a sympathetic groan. He took his time to get control of his emotions again, trying to avoid irritating his brother with his compassion, and sat down on the floor beside him. "Accept the help that is offered to you. You have to talk about it, and the ones who know you know that. And if they ask you and you're feeling like crap – then tell them; that's why they ask! We want to help you Charlie, so that you get back on your feet again."
Charlie was silent. Don couldn't support the silence any longer and thus repeated, "Let us help you. Talk to us."
In the wan moonlight that penetrated into the garage, Don couldn't see any more than Charlie's silhouette. From the tone of his voice, however, he could deduce that his brother must have put on a slight grin. "You're a fine one to talk," Charlie said, and for a moment Don wondered what he was talking about. But Charlie didn't let him stay unenlightened for long. "You would never ever do what you just advised me to do."
Don could feel that a grin crept onto his face as well. "And so? Who told you that of all people you should model yourself on me?"
Charlie smiled wearily. No, indeed nobody had ever told him to model himself on his big brother. But after all, he had never really let people tell him what to do. And seriously: how could people not model themselves on Don? He was always so self-assured, always knew what was to be done, was always a source of strength and of support... Quite the opposite to him. Charlie too would love to be as self-assured as his big brother, would like to be without all his insecurities, would also like to have this strength.
"I don't know if I can do that," he confessed. "Become the person I was before."
The smile that appeared on Don's face was the first relaxed one he'd had for weeks. Charlie understood. He knew what had to be done and he wanted to come back. "That doesn't matter," Don said, laying his arm back around his shoulders, and this time it was tolerated and not shaken off. "For I know exactly that you're gonna make it."
He could feel Charlie's shoulders relax as if he had taken a burden from them.
A few seconds passed in silence. When Charlie spoke again, Don could hear the suppressed smile in his voice: "Don't you dare tell anyone about this."
Also Don began to grin. "About me running out of the FBI building in total fright and driving through two red lights on my way here? Forget it, not gonna happen."
Charlie laughed. It was brief and low and hoarse and sounded only approximately like the way it had sounded before; but still the sound had an overwhelming effect on Don. It hadn't occurred to him until now that this was the first time since the abduction that he'd heard his brother laugh, and he now knew that he was going to take care that it would not be the last time.
The first step had already been taken. They had won against the mafia. And if Charlie's laugh was going to keep away the demons, it was clear to Don that the two of them would also win back their lives. In any case they would fight the fight side by side. And that was what mattered.
– the end –