Brothers in Arms 5/5

Epilogue:

Charlie rode the elevator to Don's office, grateful he had it all to himself. He hadn't been to Don's office in months, not since they'd almost died in that basement room. Charlie was feeling anxious about taking on his first case since that event. The anxiety had nothing to do with the dangers of working with the FBI. It was because of Don.

Don had refused to see a therapist after their ordeal even though Charlie and Alan were going both separately and together. Both brother and father knew Don needed help even more than they did and his denial was somehow proof of that.

They had managed an intervention of sorts when Don had a relapse from pushing himself too hard after being released from the hospital. They had agreed to a compromise solution: Terry, as a trained psychologist, would stand in for a regular therapist, and she pretended she was doing this more as an impartial friend of the family instead of as a mental health professional.

Because he knew Terry and because Terry knew the pressures of working at the FBI, Don was finally able to open up to her, both one on one and in the family sessions Terry had insisted upon.

When Don looked to be at his lowest, Charlie had broken out the big guns, deciding that keeping secrets wasn't worth the anguish his brother was lost in.

Don had been stressing the fact that Charlie would have come to no harm had he never brought him in to consult for the FBI. Unable to make any headway with Terry as moderator, Charlie had finally gotten up and stood in front of Don.

"Don, I want you to see something." Charlie pulled up his shirt a few inches while turning briefly to his father, "Dad, I never meant for you to hear about this, but I think Don needs to know."

Charlie turned to the side and folded down the edge of his pants an inch just above his hip. "This scar might look familiar to you, Don, even though you didn't even know I had it. You've got one just like it on your arm from the bank robbery."

Don looked closely and felt a chill go through him. It did look like the scar he'd gotten when a bullet grazed his arm. "Charlie, are you telling me..." Don almost couldn't get the words out. "Are you telling me you got shot?"

"Yes. Well, grazed like you were, to be more exact. One centimeter to the side and it would have missed me. One centimeter to the other side and I'd be walking around with an artificial hip."

Alan let out a gasp but remained silent, waiting to hear his son's explanation.

"Dad, do you remember that consulting job I had in D.C. last year?"

Alan nodded. "The one that ran way longer than you thought it would."

"Yes, only it didn't run longer. I just stayed there after it was done. I was out in the field with the D.C. police and we got shot at. Two cops were hit, one died and I got away with just a grazed hip. I stayed to recover there so you wouldn't know about it."

"Oh, Charlie!" Alan was beside himself. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"So soon after Mom died? Dad, you couldn't have handled it. I couldn't worry you at a time like that."

Charlie turned back to Don. "Or you. You think that your work makes my life dangerous? Don, my work makes my life dangerous. I choose to work with law enforcement and not just with the FBI. I put myself in harm's way to do good in the world, same as you. This is not risk that you put me in, it's risk I chose to take on and I'll keep doing it whether it's with you or without you. The whole reason I chose to go into applied mathematics, instead of pure theory, was to see my work affect people in real, tangible ways. If you think my life would be totally safe without you, then I'll just have to ask the military to give you clearance to read about the weeks I spent in Afghanistan with them."

Don was stunned. "You were in Afghanistan? You consulted with the military in an active combat zone?"

Charlie nodded. "Trust me, Don, riding in a car with you is a picnic compared to working in the field with the military. Sure, I hadn't planned on getting beat up, but I was fully aware of the possibilities even before you asked me to start consulting with you. If you don't believe me, I'll show you my life insurance policy. I raised my coverage a good four years before you and I ever worked together."

Don was speechless. Alan just kept shaking his head in disbelief.

Charlie crouched down in front of Don and put his hands on Don's knees to get his attention. "Don, I told you this because I need for you to realize what happened is not your fault. I need for you to understand that the risks you accepted when you took the job are the same risks I accepted when I started working as well. I need for you to believe that, as your brother, I had every right to risk life and limb to fight off the men who tried to take you away, and Don, most of all, I need you to see that you saved my life in that room even if you weren't the reason we got out. I am alive because of you, Don. Not despite you."

Hearing this let loose a floodgate in Don and suddenly every emotion he had suppressed, all the pain he'd felt, came out of him at once, uncontrollably. Charlie moved to sit next to him on the couch and wrapped his arms around him, shooing Alan and Terry away with a warning glance. This was between the brothers and they had to work it out on their own.

Now Charlie was walking towards Don's office, hoping their breakthrough had been enough to help Don feel ready for Charlie to start consulting with the FBI again.

He hovered just a few yards from Don's desk and watched him work for a few moments before approaching. Charlie loved watching Don work. He was so confident and commanding, always so in control. It had only taken Charlie a few weeks of working with Don to realize what every teacher and their parents had missed. Don was a genius in his own right, just not with numbers. Charlie was continually amazed at how Don kept making these brilliant leaps of intuition while working on cases: figuring out criminals' targets and motives, uncovering patterns of behavior that even Terry as a profiler had missed, and knowing exactly when and how to direct his team to ensure the best possible outcome in any tactical situation.

Juggling his phone, team members and paperwork, Don exuded competence. Charlie decided he'd have to find a private time to tell Don all this. Having almost lost his brother and his own life, he had concluded that it wasn't a good idea to put off telling people how you felt about them. Life was too short, or could be too short. Charlie walked up and waited for Don to get off the phone.

Don smiled at him and reached over to give Charlie's shoulder a squeeze while he finished up his call.

"Nice to see you got all dressed up for us!" Don joked, putting the phone back in its cradle and giving Charlie's t-shirt and jeans combo the once over.

Charlie grinned. "Didn't I tell you? I'm undercover masquerading as a college student."

Don chuckled. "Charlie, that's got to be the easiest assignment in the world for you. Your entire wardrobe screams college student, not college professor!"

They both laughed, glad to have their old rapport back in place.

"Come on, let's get you set up in the workroom. The data's all ready for you."

As Charlie settled into a chair in the workroom, he took a moment to grab Don's arm as he passed by.

"Don?"

"Yeah, Charlie?"

"It's good to be back."

Don paused at this and gave Charlie the smile he'd been hoping to see.

"It's good to have you back, buddy."

Charlie returned his smile.

Now, it truly was good to be back.