Just a tag to the first episode. Was part of an AU I was working on, but I un-AU-ified it.

Everything's Numbers

Charlie stood up from the table and grabbed his empty plate. He pushed through into the kitchen and set it in the sink with the rest of the dishes from their simple meal. He hesitated. Tonight might have been his turn to wash them, but he couldn't remember. Yesterday and today were a bit of a blur of numbers and crime scene photos and rape and murder and attempted murder. He took a steadying breath in and decided to try to skate by on not doing the dishes. Instead, he poured himself a glass of juice before making his way back through the swinging door into the dining room, intent on giving the data in his head an outlet before it got too intense.

Alan, still sitting at the table reading a copy of the newspaper, peered at him over the edge of his glasses. "Where are you going?"

"Outside," he said and sipped from the glass. The juice was almost too sweet and tingled on his tongue. Tea would have been preferable, but he needed the sugar boost to keep his brain working just a little bit longer. "I need to refine a few parts of the equations I came up with for Don. This application will have a far reaching use across the rest of the department, maybe even across the whole agency where serial criminals are concerned."

"I see," Alan said. Charlie squirmed under the gaze his father pinned him with. "Sounds like something you can work on from home or your office."

Slightly confused, he nodded slowly.

"So I don't see why you had to go all the way down to a crime scene today," Alan continued.

His grip on the glass tightened. "It was safe, Dad. Law enforcement had the scene under control, and Don wanted to show me I was right. The first hot zone I came up with was where the man lived up until three weeks ago."

"Don could've told you that you were right over the phone."

Charlie didn't have an answer for him. They stared at each other for a long moment while he dug through his mind to come up with a reason why he had gone. He had been surprised when Don had not only called him to tell him they caught the guy, but had wanted him to come to the scene, even arranging for an agent to drive him down there. His father was right. Don could have simply told him about the parking sticker on the vehicle and left it at that.

On the other hand, he wasn't exactly sure why he had felt compelled to go to the scene without argument. There had been a flush of something - excitement, maybe - at the fact his brother wanted him to come see the results of his math. Though, seeing the medical examiners haul away a black body bag had made his skin crawl and the wound he'd briefly seen inflicted on Agent Sinclair's hand had made him woozy. Seeing the obviously rattled and worse for wear, but very much alive woman in the back of the ambulance with Agent Lake, however, was something else.

"It was eye opening to see a tangible result," he said suddenly.

Alan perked a brow. "You work with applied mathematics. You usually see tangible results, don't you?"

"Nothing like this," he murmured, remembering the woman's face, marked with tears of terror and relief. He turned, collected his laptop from the table, and headed for the back door, hoping to escape any other questions his father had for him.

"I know you want to help Don, but his world isn't yours, Charlie," Alan said.

"My world's numbers, and everything's numbers, Dad. Even Don's world," he said and ducked out before more could be said.

A velvety darkness had fallen outside, casting deep shadows over the surrounding houses and landscaping. The backyard was a refuge from said shadows with its strings of lights that cast a warm glow on the back deck and lawn, and rippled gently on the surface of the koi pond near the fence. He dusted a few leaves off one of the chairs and flopped into it with a sigh, setting his juice on the patio table. He was painfully aware Don's world wasn't his. Don's world was rugged, dangerous, and violent with high stakes. His world was safe, predictable, and familiar, the ivory tower of academia as they called it. It seemed like he and his brother hadn't shared the same world in a very long time, if ever.

There had been a slim span of time when they were kids when it seemed like they had existed in the same world. Then came Charlie's tutors and advanced schooling, and Don turned to sports and his friends. Then came high school.

He shuddered and pushed those memories aside. With a few taps, he brought up the digital copy of his equations. The lines of numbers soothed the sting of some of his not-so-cherished childhood memories and he let himself fall into them.

A little fine tuning and they would be ready for any team within the FBI to use to track serial criminals back to an origin point. A small thrill went through him. Working white collar cases where the name of the game was numbers was inside the normal parameters for the FBI, they had an entire division dedicated to white collar crimes. He'd only been called in to help a few months back because he could do it faster and with less manpower. Plus, he vaguely remembered Assistant Director Merrick breathing down Don's neck over that stock fraud case, and his brother had griped about how long it was taking for the analysts to come up with anything until Charlie had pointed out the simple inconsistency that led to the case breaking wide open.

But this…this wasn't a white collar crime. This would save lives. This had already saved a victim's life and who knew how many other potential victims. Even though the math wouldn't be that hard to determine how many more women Haldane would have likely preyed on, it wasn't an answer he wanted to find out. It sat heavy in his gut just thinking about how many lives would have been ruined if between him, Don, and his father they hadn't come to the conclusion to find two hot zones. Haldane would still be out there. Stalking victims. Raping them. Killing them.

He jumped at a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision. His heart fluttered uncontrollably for a few seconds before his eyes alighted on the source of his momentary fright.

"Cat," he muttered, eyeing the fluffy creature perched on the top of the fence above the koi pond. His heart rate started to return to a normal rhythm and the anxiety of a now dead serial killer appearing in his father's backyard dwindled.

He closed the laptop lid part way and considered the cat watching him from the fence. He and his father didn't know what its name was and thus always called the thing Cat. Very creative. There were a couple cats that roamed the neighborhood.

This one in particular had the habit of walking the fences between backyards and seemed to gain some sort of satisfaction from scaring Charlie by dropping out of the trees or popping out of the bushes when he was near the koi pond. It wasn't particularly affectionate, but it was used to him now.

The cat cocked its head at him, eyes flashing green and tail twitching. Then it lowered its gaze to the koi pond.

A grin tugged at his lips. At first, he'd been terrified the cat was going to harm the koi, except it seemed content to watch them just like he did. For some reason, though, he doubted the cat was thinking about fluid dynamics when watching the tubby fish slip through the water. Work involving fluid dynamics had been one his first pet projects. Princeton had been impressed with his research. Yet, for the first time, knowing he had achieved such a feat at such a young age didn't hold as much weight as it used to. In fact, it even paled a fraction in comparison to what he had come up with yesterday to find a killer.

He and the cat both looked up at the crunching sound as a car rolled into the driveway around front and the near silent engine cut out. The creature took its leave and dove back over the fence into the neighbor's yard while Charlie wondered who would be stopping by the house at this hour.

Resuming his edits on the equations, he kept one ear tuned toward the house. The front door opened and he heard his father greet someone. To his surprise, it was Don's voice that returned the greeting. That was strange. He would have guessed Don would've gone out for drinks with his team or back to his apartment after such a stressful case. He had only been involved with it for two days and felt like he needed a vacation; he couldn't imagine how his brother felt after having worked on it for so much longer. Their voices faded and were replaced by muffled clinking sounds in the kitchen.

After a while, the screen door slid open and Don stepped out, beer in hand. Without waiting for an invitation, he swept leaves off one of the other seats and plopped down, then kicked his feet up on top of the patio table.

"Just got an earful from Dad about having you come out to a crime scene," Don said. He took a swig from his beer.

Charlie grimaced. He probably should have left the crime scene part out when he had recounted the events of the day to their father. "Sorry, bro. I got it, too."

"Next time, maybe don't tell him everything, okay?" Don said, reaffirming his thought about omitting a few details.

He blinked as the first two words registered. He glanced over at his brother. "Next time?"

Don shrugged. "Assistant Director Merrick was impressed. I can't imagine him ignoring you as a resource, now."

"Oh. Okay." He nodded mostly to himself. The Assistant Director was impressed with him. As much as that should have stroked his ego, it felt kind of empty.

"Like I said, Buddy, it was a hell of an equation," Don said.

The use of the fond nickname wasn't lost on him. Maybe it wasn't just the Assistant Director that was impressed with him. "Sure. You really think the Assistant Director will want me to consult on more non-white collar cases?"

"Maybe a few here and there," Don said. His brother took another swig before the grin could fully break out on his face. "Because God help us all, for some reason everything is numbers."

Charlie smiled. Perhaps he and Don could exist in the same world again with the help of numbers.

-End-

Man, I had a lot of stuff cooking for this show fic-wise, but I had an anxiety meltdown over a year ago after I posted "Big Brother" and just haven't written fanfic again. Had nothing to do with writing or posting fic, but it sure got swept up in the emotional tidal wave. Been working with a counselor just to get back to writing in general. But I've got a few little tidbits like this tucked around in some larger works that I might be able to post as I get myself settled again.

Will I ever actually write fanfic again? I don't know. But I hope y'all can enjoy what I do post.