This is the third story in this series.
I would suggest reading Story One, "Mr. Monk and The Price You Pay," and Story Two, "Mr. Monk and The Game, " before reading this. This won't make as much sense otherwise! As always, I own nothing of the real Monk or the characters, but I do own this fanciful story. Thanks for reading, feedback is always welcome!
Chapter 1 - New Feelings—Charlie
Charlie Monk sat silently in the back seat of his mother's white Mercedes SUV, a gift from his maternal grandparents when she'd completed her doctorate a few years ago. The gray interior was spotless and just like brand new, thanks to his father, the clean and neat freak that he was… just like Charlie was himself. He knew he inherited that particular quirk from his father. It wasn't a bad compulsion if one had to have compulsions. People tended to like people who were neat, clean, and orderly. He was, by now, trying to hide it from his friends at school so he didn't seem too weird; his intellect made him weird enough. He already saw a psychologist—as if being incredibly smart and incredibly clean weren't enough to make him a social outcast— he had a shrink, too. Oh, he had friends. In fact, he had a lot of friends at his toney private school for the gifted. Many of them were as hyper-intelligent as Charlie was, albeit in different ways. This group included his younger sister. Charlie watched the scenery go by; the churning in his belly had only subsided slightly since "Tommy" had left the Monk Investigations office, and the three Monks had left to go to Julie and Jared's house to pick up Emery.
He balled his hands into fists as they rested in his lap. Charlie usually wasn't much of a fidgeter. Also, like his father, he was as still and as silent as a statue sometimes.
His father caught the slight movement out of the corner of his eye and frowned. He knew Charlie was unhappy about something, but he didn't want to suss it out until he could look him directly in the face. If Adrian had to guess, he'd have said it was the appearance of Tom Murphy in their offices this afternoon that put Charlie in the mood he was in now. Natalie had silently signaled him to leave it be for the time being. Adrian didn't like loose ends, and he was currently nagged by a loose end—he felt that his son was angry with him for some reason.
Natalie watched her two men brood and sulk and rolled her eyes. She wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but they behaved like children. At least one of them was a child, the other one… Natalie just gave an internal head shake and kept her thoughts to herself for the moment. She pulled into Julie and Jared's driveway and breathed a silent sigh of relief. Emery came on the run when Natalie was out of the car.
"Mom! You have to see what Gabriel can do! Come on!" Emery pulled Natalie up the walkway and into the house; they left Adrian and Charlie to follow. Once inside, Natalie caught Emery, her whirling dervish, and slowed her down.
"Where is everyone?"
"Down in the living room," Emery called as she whirled away.
Always on the move, that one, Natalie thought, as frenetic and kinetic as her brother was calm and still.
Julie and Jared's house had a very 1960s vibe with a sunken living room, which, when they had first seen it, made them balk at buying the house despite the area, proximity to both sets of their parents, and the good schools. But when Peggy Davenport saw it and then sent her decorator to the house with a million suggestions, they changed their minds when the possibilities of a modern sunken living room were shown to them. They chose to utilize light and color to make the space more inviting. The decorator helped them incorporate the same colors in the sunken room as in the rest of the home. They matched upholstery and furniture, so the room was a cohesive part of the home design. Peggy's gift of the decorator's fees and more than a little extra for the costs associated with the decor as a housewarming gift was both generous and just what the young couple needed. They added an attractive overhead fixture and plenty of accent lighting, ensuring the sunken room didn't feel dark and dank. They also took Adrian's safety suggestion of contrasting colors on the steps to make sure everyone noticed them.
This is where Natalie found her eldest daughter and her two adorable grandchildren. Gabriel was toddling around while holding onto the couch cushions. He was twenty months old and precious. Dirty blonde hair, the Stottlemeyer ice blue eyes very reminiscent of Jared's and Leland's, and a smile that was one hundred percent Julie's and, therefore, Natalie's as well. She scooped him up, kissed his cheek, and put him back where he'd been toddling. Then she bent to kiss her daughter, sitting on the couch holding her newborn daughter. Natalie also kissed the baby's forehead gently. She patted Julie's shoulder as she moved along. She found Willow Disher sitting at the kitchen counter with Jared, seriously mixing something in a bowl.
"Hi, Mom!" Jared said, happily accepting a hello kiss. He was in his second week of paternity leave and looked positively relaxed and content helping Willow.
"Hi, Aunt Natalie," Willow said as she received her hello kiss on her head. "We're making brownies." Willow, about five months younger than Charlie, had opted to see the new baby rather than come to the office with her best friend, Charlie, to help set up Adrian's new computer that day. Willow was living up to her name—growing up tall, thin, and willowy. Natalie often saw hints of Sharona and Randy but most often saw Benjy in her expressions and build.
As if he heard her thoughts, Benjy Howe walked into the kitchen, and Natalie went to kiss him hello, too. "Where's your wife?" Natalie asked him after a brief hug. Benjy had married a fellow FBI agent only eight months earlier.
"She ran to the grocery store just now; I'm supposed to be helping Jared set up some baby furniture… I'm not sure how we got talked into brownies!" He bent to tickle his little sister. Willow laughed with delight. After washing her hands meticulously, as the true mate of Adrian Monk should, Natalie left the kitchen and walked back into the living room, where she found her husband zooming their grandson around in the air.
"Hey, Gabriel, are you an airplane?" he asked. Gabriel was making all kinds of zooming noises; this was their favorite game.
Natalie took baby Victoria from Julie's arms and sat in the recliner chair near the couch. The tiny pink bundle was so warm and smelled so good. It reminded Natalie of the happiest days of her life. Days that she wasn't actually all that far removed from herself.
"Daddy!" Emery exclaimed with exasperation, "Put Gabriel down; let him show you what he can do!" Julie laughed at her little sister's insistence that her nephew was brilliant.
Adrian put the child down, and Emery handed him a piece of paper. "Gabriel," she said, "Draw a blue square."
A moment later, the little boy picked the correct color from the pile of crayons and drew a blue square. Adrian looked up at Natalie and then at Julie, impressed despite himself, even though his children went to The Adda Clevenger School—a school for the gifted and talented—as no ordinary public school could contain their intelligence. Where Charlie was analytical, a critical thinker, and mathematical, Emery was artistic and musical. Both had incredibly high IQs, and they continually surprised their parents.
"Gabriel, draw a red circle," Emery said. Gabriel drew quite a passable red circle. "Gabriel, draw a black triangle." He did as requested. "These are totally different from what I asked him to do the first and second time."
Natalie responded, "For goodness sake, Emery, he's not a trained monkey."
"I know!" she said with exasperation. "Gabe shouldn't know how to do this yet, right?"
Adrian said, "Uh, Julie, maybe you should take him and have him tested. This is pretty advanced for twenty months. Advanced like… Monk-advanced." Adrian went into the kitchen, amazed and confused. Gabriel didn't even have the Monk genes in him. He and Natalie had always expected their children to be of above-average intelligence. Genetically speaking, they had a wealth of intellect to draw from. Gabriel was a new species altogether - A Davenport-Teeger-Stottlemeyer creation. Interesting. Was it nature or nurture? Could hanging around with Charlie, Emery, Ambrose, and him affect another child's intelligence? Adrian washed his hands thoroughly and said hello to Benjy, Willow, and Jared.
"Uncle Adrian, do you like brownies?"
"Yes, Willow. I do. Why?"
"We're baking some right now!"
"Yes, I can smell them."
"They'll be ready soon."
"Okay." Adrian suppressed the willies he got when he thought about the brownies made by an eight-year-old under just his son-in-law's supervision. "Well, as soon as they cool, we will have to have a taste." Despite his enthusiastic response, Adrian hoped they were long gone and home before that time came. Although he loved Willow as if she were one of his own children, the ick factor was high on anything children had their hands in… even with Emery and Charlie, he drew some lines. Children cooking food was one of those lines. Through Natalie's patient tutelage, he learned to tell little white lies to save his children's feelings and extended those lessons to Willow and other small humans he encountered.
With his freshly cleaned hands, he carefully pulled his new granddaughter out of Natalie's arms and settled right next to her on the seat between Julie and the chair where Natalie was sitting. When Emery crawled up next to him, he sighed happily. All of his girls were in one place. He looked over Victoria's face and marveled at her perfect little features, heart-shaped mouth, and adorably chubby cheeks. He supposed she was making sucking motions even as she slept peacefully in Adrian's arms because she was dreaming of her next meal. He loved it when Charlie and Emery did that when they were newborns. He thought it was adorable then, and it was adorable now. He smiled into Natalie's eyes. His heart jumped a little, as it always did. She was undoubtedly a sexy grandma. He looked away before his mind went to not-safe-for-public thoughts. He saw Charlie standing at the bay window; his fists had finally unfurled, but his back was ramrod stiff, staring out into the backyard. Adrian heaved a sigh of regret, handed the baby back to Natalie, and got up to face his son. He grabbed their coats from the banister.
"Charlie," Adrian said softly, but his son was visibly startled. "Come sit outside with me." Adrian handed Charlie his coat, and the pair went to the patio. Winter was obviously headed their way. Adrian fired up the propane heater that sat between two gliding chairs. All three had been housewarming gifts from Natalie and him. The heater came in handy. San Francisco was cooling as the Earth was changing.
As neither of the Monk men was particularly good at confrontation, they sat silently for a few minutes, twisting their fingers in their laps. Of course, they both realized this and started to talk simultaneously.
"Charlie…"
"Dad…"
They laughed uneasily, and then Adrian said, "Charlie, what has you so upset? At me, I mean."
Charlie shook his head in frustration. At nine and a half, he was mature yet still a child in many ways. "I. Don't. Know." A Monk-ism if ever there was one. "I really don't. It started in the office with that Tom guy, and I felt like I wanted to punch him when you hugged him. You don't hug anyone except family. Ever. Then you made me leave so you could talk to him and Mom alone. You never leave me out of things. That made me angry. So now I have… feelings. I don't know what they are. But they are not nice, and they are not kind, and they are not pleasant."
Adrian put his hand on Charlie's shoulder and looked at him squarely. "Charlie, I think you're feeling jealousy and spite. You're absolutely right; I don't hug anyone except family. Tommy was family for a brief period, and although I haven't seen him in at least 17 years, I'll never forget how he made me feel. He helped open my heart so I could eventually love your mother and become Julie's father, and then we could have you and Emery. He was an important piece in my emotional recovery after my first wife died." Charlie knew the story of his father's first wife, Trudy, and how that had led him to need Aunt Sharona, which further led him to meet his mother. Charlie nodded. "I will never love anyone like I love you, Emery, and Julie. Never. But there is room in my heart for others. I love Jared, and now Gabriel and Tori. And, of course, I love Willow. You're not angry about that, are you?"
"No. That's why I didn't understand my reaction."
Ever the junior analytical mind. Being meta about his own thinking. Adrian used to think Charlie's calling would be teaching. Now, he was leaning towards it being psychiatry. Adrian nodded. Many times in his young life, Adrian had adult emotions he didn't comprehend, so he sympathized with his son.
"No boy on this Earth, Charles Mitchell Monk, will ever mean more to Mommy or me than you. You were such a gift to us in more ways than you will ever understand, and no one could come close to replacing you or taking your spot. Just because I knew Tommy first doesn't mean he means more to me than you do. Just because we had to talk privately doesn't mean I was leaving you out. There are parts of what mom and I do that are not meant for children to see or hear, even if they are as brilliant and helpful as you and Emery. Sometimes, our work can be difficult, even for us, Uncle Leland, and Uncle Randy. We do it because we feel the duty to do it. But you shouldn't know how difficult and awful life can be until you are much, much older than you are right now. Your mother and I want to protect you the way neither of us was protected when we were children, and we never would purposefully hurt you physically or otherwise. I hope you know that."
Charlie was privy to some of the sadness both of his parents grew up with, although the way that Jack, Peggy, and Bobby were now, it was hard for Charlie to imagine how they were then. However, intellectually, he knew his parents didn't lie to him about the big stuff.
"I do know that. I didn't say that the feelings were logical or that I made them happen. They just came."
"I know, son. I know. It's hard for rational humans like you and me to feel irrational and out of control. But if you want to talk to Dr. Deveare about it, that might be a good idea."
"Will he know how to fix me?"
Adrian barked out a sarcastic laugh. Thinking of all the times he'd wondered the same thing over the years about Dr. Kroger or Dr. Bell. Why couldn't they tell him what to do instead of trying to get him to fix himself? "Well, Charlie, I've been seeing Dr. Bell for many years, and he always tells me the answers are inside of me. Most of the time, they are. It just takes a whole lot of digging to figure them out. It isn't easy. But when you've got minds like ours, as easy as some things are, others are ten times harder than they are for other people."
It was Charlie's turn to nod.
Natalie looked out the window at the backs of the two dark, curly-headed Monk men she adored. Their improved body language told her they were working things out.
Julie said, "What's with Dad and Charlie? I could see something was wrong the minute you all came in."
Natalie sighed. "Nothing is really wrong," she answered as she slowly rocked her granddaughter, "I think Charlie got his first taste of jealousy today, and he didn't know what to do about it, and your father was blithely ignorant about it. Don't worry - they're figuring it out together out there…" She tilted her chin to the backyard. "They'll work it out."
"No doubt. Dad always comes through, even if he thinks he can't." Julie smiled and shifted on the couch. Her smile turned to a grimace. She'd had an emergency cesarean two weeks previously and was still very uncomfortable, thus the hovering sets of helping hands that kept coming and going from their house. Julie thought about how Adrian had acted after Victoria's birth. The terror for her after eighteen hours of labor, then surgery. His love and fear flashed from his eyes when he finally saw her again. In every way that mattered, Adrian Monk was her father. He came to her bedside in the hospital, held her hand, and cried with relief.
She watched her brother and father walk in from outside; they brought in a chill with them. Charlie came to her and hugged her as he'd not even said hello to her when he'd arrived. Then, he noticed she had a chill, so he fetched the blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders. She kissed him gratefully on the cheek, and she hugged him again. "Hey, little brother, everything okay?"
"Uh…yes. Well, it will be. I have to figure some stuff out."
Julie looked at Natalie over Charlie's head. They both smiled ruefully; he was so much Adrian's son.
Adrian went back into the kitchen to talk to Jared and Benjy. Benjy's wife, Elizabeth, came in with the groceries and Jared's credit card.
"I stopped by Nordstrom's on the way back," she teased as she handed the card to Jared. Everyone laughed, including Adrian, who once claimed he had no sense of humor. It seemed he had finally developed one. Liz went to sit with Julie and Natalie before she and Benjy took Willow home to Sharona and Randy. Adrian checked out for a moment as he watched the myriad children bounding all over and realized they all belonged to him in some way: his children, grandchildren, godchild. Not to mention the adult children Julie, Jared, Benjy, and Elizabeth. Once upon a time, he'd been a lonely man; now, he couldn't turn around without a friend or a relative being there, and Adrian wasn't one bit sorry for it, except when he and Natalie wanted some privacy. He smirked a little, thinking of how they all traded kids for date nights. It became more complicated when they all had to or wanted to go somewhere together. They had always been close. They were even more tightly knit together since the case four years ago where Steven Albright and his band of hateful misanthropes tried to destroy California cities with bigotry and bombs.
"Okay, calling all Monks! Ready to go home?" Natalie sang. Emery and Charlie gathered their coats, and Adrian kissed Julie and Victoria again. He made Julie promise to call if they needed anything.
"I will, Dad, I promise. With the groceries Liz just bought, we'll be fine." He smiled at his Julie, who was all grown up—a married lady and a mom now. To him, she still looked like the eleven-year-old girl he'd met way back when. She probably always would.
Liz and Benjy also gathered Willow, who was wailing about her unfinished brownies. "I'll save them for you, Willow," Jared promised her. That seemed to mollify Willow because it meant she'd return to see the baby and her brownies again soon.