Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters here. I do not own Don McLean. Some of the dialogue has been borrowed directly from the show. This is a work of fiction and I am making no money on this. Edited April 27, 2005 because all of a sudden, we can't have song lyrics in the fic even if we cite them. Sigh. Okay, I know this has apparantly been a rule for a while, but it's news to me.

Summary: We know that Charlie was shaken by Finn's suicide, but is there another reason for why he felt so connected to the case? Angsty missing scene from Structural Corruption. Written before Prime Suspect, so the discussion of prime numbers later on is not related to that.

Warning: This fic is rated PG-13 for a reason. I don't think it merits an 'R' rating, but it will deal heavily with the theme of suicide. There will also be strong language. You have been warned, people.

Vincent My Brother

"Finn Montgomery suicide note." Agent Don Eppe's conversation with his brother Charlie was interrupted as his partner Terry Lake walked towards them, a piece of folded paper clutched in her outstretched hand. Don and Charlie stopped dead in their tracks; Don accepted the note. "Mailed to his parents the night before he died," Terry went on. "It took this long to get forwarded to L.A."

Charlie was staring at her, a rare confused look on his face. "Were you able to verify it?" He asked.

Terry nodded grimly. "Yeah, it's Finn's handwriting. It iterates all the pressures: the girlfriend breaking up with him, the thesis, his inability to convince anybody of the Cole center's flaws…" Don glanced down at the note. The handwriting was sloppy but essentially legible. The ink stained heavy in some places, lighter in others. It looked a bit like Charlie's trademark scrawl.

Mom, Dad, I'm so sorry… please don't blame yourselves, don't cry, it's not your fault…

"That doesn't make sense." Don heard Charlie begin to protest, as though he could change the reality of the paper Don held in his hands. "He was right about the building."

"In this circumstance, being right could have been the crisis point that tipped him to suicide," Terry explained sadly. Don could read the look of denial in his brother's eyes.

"It's like he thought this was the only way to get anyone to take him seriously," Don said quietly. He shook his head slightly and tried to break away from the grip of his brother's lost, mournful stare. It didn't work. "Charlie, I'm sorry." Don sighed. "He was just a kid. He was smart, but he just wasn't strong enough to deal with this period of his life." Don tried to make his voice comforting, tried to make it soothing, but he failed in that too. Charlie's eyes were damp and frightened, and like he had dome so many times before, the younger Eppes brother clumsily turned and walked blindly away.

Don Eppes now shot down the FBI corridor. Time was of the essence, he knew; Terry and he had a pretty good idea of what to do now and what came next. But Don knew from experience that at this very moment, his little brother was the priority. Waiting ten minutes to leave wasn't the professional thing to do, but Don thought that this one time he could be excused; Charlie needed him.

Where would the young genius go? This wasn't home, where he could retreat to his room, the backyard, or his blackboards in the garage.

Blackboard. Only one room in this section of the building had something like that- the dry-erase board in the briefing room that Charlie often lectured in. More than likely, that's where he could be found.

Sure enough, the blinds on the large windows of the room were drawn and when Don entered, Charlie was standing at the board, scribbling numbers. At first the list didn't look familiar to Don, just a random set of digits, until he realized what it was.

235711131719… it was a long list of prime numbers, written so closely together that they blended to form one long string. Charlie was only up to 157; then again, he'd only been working at it a few minutes.

This was one of the young man's habits. Sequences of numbers, like prime numbers, the Fibonacci sequence, and lucky numbers (to name a few) Charlie refused to memorize. When he was bored or anxious, he would recite or write them, figuring out the next one as he went along each and every time. Don had always wondered how he could not commit them to memory after solving them so many times, but he guessed that if Charlie could easily recall tremendous groups of numbers, he could just as easily convince himself not to remember them.

Don's brother didn't hear him enter, which was typical. Charlie essentially epitomized 'selective hearing'. Oftentimes he would only chose to hear you if you were blurting some esoteric math jumble.

"Charlie." Charlie didn't turn around. It was times like this that Don wondered if his little brother expertly ignored him, or genuinely couldn't hear. "Charlie."

199, Charlie wrote. How he could check the list of factors in his head so quickly was beyond Don. Charlie paused with his marker pressed to the board; then, as the next number came to him, he scribbled it frantically. 211.

"Next one is two-thirteen, right?" Don walked a little closer.

Charlie seemed to sigh imperceptibly. "Two-thirteen is divisible by three."

Don shook his head. "How do you do that so quickly?"

Charlie still hadn't turned around. "That one's pretty easy. The digits add up to six, which is divisible by three, therefore the number itself is too."

"Oh, right." Even when he didn't say much, Charlie always managed to make Don feel completely slow. "We learned that in eighth grade. Heh. Charlie… are you all right?"

223. "Yes."

"Look at me and say that," Don challenged tiredly.

227. 229.

"Charlie, listing the smaller prime numbers will not solve a great mathematical mystery," Don said impatiently. "You can find the list going up to the first thousand anywhere online. Turn around and talk to me."

Charlie hesitated then turned slowly, blue marker still clutched in his hand. Navy lines from its ink marked his hands, arms and even his forehead. Don would bet that in his frenzied writing he hadn't even noticed.

"I'm so sorry," Don said before Charlie could look away again, "that it turned out to be suicide. But I don't see why you're so upset."

"Yeah, well, you wouldn't," Charlie replied darkly.

"He wasn't your student. Are you upset because you were wrong? Newsflash, Char, you've been wrong before and you'll be wrong again. You still-"

"It's not that," Charlie said quickly.

"Good. Because even if you were wrong about Finn, you still helped uncover a huge scandal. Charlie, you might have just saved thousands of lives."

"Finn saved those lives, Don," Charlie was quick to say. "And no one saved his."

"And that was your job," Don replied sarcastically.

"Yes."

Don sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I wasn't being serious." Charlie said nothing.

"Charlie, this was your first experience with suicide," Don said gently. "I'm sorry. Of course you'd be affected. Look, Terry and I have to go. I'll have dinner at the house tonight, though, and if you need to talk we can." There. That seemed like a good thing to say if Charlie wasn't going to cooperate. Don turned to leave.

Charlie's voice, small and soft, stopped his hand mere inches from the door handle. "It's not."

Don turned back around. "Not what?"

Charlie stood there, looking desperate and small inside his jeans and black t-shirt that read I think therefore I'm dangerous. "It's not my first experience with suicide."

"What?"

Charlie was shaking, and Don felt his heart begin to beat faster. Was this FBI consulting getting too much underneath Charlie's skin? Don suddenly doubted his brother's ability to handle it. "Charlie, what are you talking about?"

Charlie opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. At any other time, it would have been amusing. "I have to tell someone, Don," he murmured at last. "I can't stand not saying anything."

Don felt sick and dizzy. "Charlie…"

"When we were younger," Charlie said quietly, "I used to think about killing myself."

Don's brain froze. "What?" he yelped.

"Quiet!" Charlie insisted, looking utterly miserable. "I knew I shouldn't have told you."

"No, Charlie, no, what you should have done is told me sooner!" Don tried to keep the panic and anger out of his eyes, but he knew it wasn't working. It was hard not to be floored by news like this, no matter how much experience the agent had in emotional impassiveness. "Are you still… do you still…"

"No." Charlie assured him flatly. "Not for ten years. Look, I shouldn't have said anything. But you asked. And I've been waiting to say it for years." Charlie ran a hand through his mess of curly hair.

"God, Charlie…" Don murmured. "Why'd you wait at all?"

But all of a sudden Charlie couldn't answer. He held a hand up to cover his mouth and stayed like that for a minute, breathing heavily. When he finally lowered it, it was to choke out the most heart-breaking statement Don had ever heard.

"I didn't want you guys," His voice was breaking, "to be disappointed in me." His hand snapped back up and he turned away. What he began to do was incredible to Don. Pressing the marker back to the board, he wrote: 233 239 241…

"Charlie!" Don shouted. "What the hell? Look at me!"

Charlie turned obligingly, reminding Don of nothing so much as a puppy with his tail down between his legs.

"Now say something." Don commanded unevenly. "Have you just been hiding this all your life?"

"No," Charlie whispered. "I told Mom. I went to see her by myself about a week before she... I think I had to tell her." Charlie broke off, closing his eyes.

"What did she say?" Don asked quietly.

Charlie looked up at him miserably. Nose red, eyes bleary and half-hidden by dark curls, he looked again like the five-year-old who'd been left behind in the supermarket when he stayed to count jars and cans and the others moved on to the next isle; he looked utterly, hopelessly lost. "I don't think she even heard me, Don," he stammered. "With all the medications, all the machines... I don't think she even heard me. But I had to tell her." Charlie was shaking again, all over.

The sinking feeling in Don's stomach intensified. "Hey," he said quietly. "Hey, hey, Charlie. C'mon." He put a hand on Charlie's shoulder. His brother jumped slightly and shied away, but relented after a moment and looked up at Don. Tears were shining in his eyes, but none fell. Don grabbed a tissue from a nearby box anyway and handed it to Charlie, who took it and clutched it in his hand without acknowledging.

"I'm sorry," Charlie whispered. Then, a little more firmly, "I'm sorry; you've got work to do."

"Don't apologize."

"I'm okay."

"You're not okay, Charlie," Don said quietly.

"No, no, I am, Don. Don't worry about me." Charlie resolutely swiped at his eyes with an empty hand, even though he still had a tissue clenched in the other. "Please," he added softly.

But Don couldn't accept that the conversation was over. There were still questions to ask. "Did you ever... try, Charlie?"

Charlie shook his head and sniffed. He was still blinking back tears, and his nose was running. "I couldn't. I don't know why. I just couldn't."

Don opened his mouth to speak, but Charlie went on. "I knew how I would, though. The closest I ever came was right after… I wrote that note."

Don's mouth was dry. "You wrote a note," he whispered uncomprehendingly. He still had to know. "How were you going to?"

Charlie bit his lip to keep his expression steady. "Our roof was three stories, high, and you know we could get on it from the attic... I was gonna jump, Don. It seemed like the best way."

"Oh," Don said blankly. Then, as it registered, "Ohhhh... Charlie. Finn... jumped."

Charlie nodded weakly. "Yeah. Finn jumped."

"Why..." Don cleared his throat. "Why didn't you?"

Charlie spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "You caught me before I could really think it through, Don." He shook his head, but it seemed more like a tremor. "Like I said, the closet I ever came was when I was writing that note. But… you walked in on me writing it." Before Don could respond, Charlie turned back to the board. 243.

"Two-forty-three is divisible by three," Don said quietly.

Charlie froze. The marker began to slip from his fingers and he slammed it down on the whiteboard's ledge before he could drop it. "Damnit," he mumbled, rubbing the last few numbers away with his fingers.

Don took a few steps forward and put his hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Hey. It's okay."

Charlie turned around. His head was lowered but Don could still see the wet lines running down his cheeks that meant he had at last begun to cry.

Don stumbled under the sudden feeling of deja-vu at that sight. Something from half a lifetime ago ran through his mind. Had that been what Charlie meant? Had that been what Charlie was doing?

Charlie's words echoed in Don's heart. You walked in on me writing it…

Fourteen years previous

Charlie was listening to Don McLean. Somehow it seemed like 'smart person' music to his older brother Don. All the smart people he'd ever met listened to that guy. His mom loved him; his sophomore English teacher loved him. His ex-girlfriend, Judy-from-lit-101 had the habit of humming a different McLean song depending on her mood. ("I'm the only Don you need," he insisted.)

And now Charlie sat by his boombox, blasting a song. The words didn't register with Don, but slowly, he remembered hearing the melody before.

The song was Vincent. It was the song Judy had hummed whenever she was depressed and wanted Don to hold her.

"Please come home, Don," his parents' message had said. "It's Charlie… something's wrong." Don had driven back from college that same night. He and his younger brother were both ending their freshman year, but Charlie was barely fourteen. His mother's voice had sounded worried. There was an unspoken fear in there, one that had been hanging over their family for years… sure, Charlie was smart enough to be taking the same classes as his nineteen-year-old brother. But was he really ready? That was all Don could think his mother meant by 'something's wrong.'

Don pushed open Charlie's door all the way. He was no shrink. But it didn't take an expert to see that something was indeed wrong right now.

The room was littered with paper: pinned on walls, taped to desks and surfaces, lying in piles on the floor. A thousand pages, at least, Don guess, and none of what was written on them made any sense to him.

Charlie was huddled against the side of his bed, mouthing the words without speaking, without even noticing, probably. A notebook was propped against his bent knees, a pencil clutched in his hand. He was crying.

"Charlie?" Don said quietly, stepping uninvited through the door. "What is it, buddy?"

"Go away Don," Charlie protested without looking up. "Leave me the fuck alone." Tears were running wildly down his face and his breath was coming in uneven gasps.

"What the hell is wrong, Charlie?" In on quick motion, Don was sitting about Charlie, perched on his bed. "What are you writing?"

Charlie grabbed the notebook away from Don's prying reach. "It's math homework," he grunted, shoving the papers out of reach. "Just math homework."

Don gave him a look, and Charlie shied away from it, burying his face in his hands. Don touched his shoulder and was surprised to feel it shake even under the light pressure.

"Turn this fucking music off, for one," Don demanded abruptly, reaching forward and switching off the speakers with the hand not touching Charlie. "No wonder you're crying. Goddamn depressing."

"It's not that," Charlie replied instantly, talking into his hands.

"No, I know," Don replied coolly. "It's the math homework." That was Don's method, his way. If he talked smoothly, maybe Charlie wouldn't be able to tell how shaken he truly was to see his baby brother in such a state.

Charlie shook his head. The way his body was shivering was near spasmodic by now. If he didn't stop soon he was likely to make himself sick.

"Please tell me, buddy," Don whispered. In a split second decision he had abandoned the façade; his voice was soft and cautious now.

"I c-can't tell anyone," Charlie whimpered. "You w-wouldn't underst-stand."

"Try me."

"No." That one word was the most firm, the most adamant, that Don had heard Charlie say all night.

"Charlie." Don tried not to sigh. "I drove three hours because Mom and Dad are worried sick. They say you do nothing but sit in your room and study for your classes. They say you've stopped coming down to dinner. God, we're all worried sick." Don grabbed his little brother's thin wrists and pulled his hands away from his face. Charlie winced and recoiled, as though the sudden light hurt his eyes. "Now, I'm not leaving until you tell me what's wrong."

Charlie's face crumpled. More tears left his bloodshot eyes and joined those already drying on his cheeks. "I can't," he repeated, not looking at Don directly.

"You can't. Can't what? Can't tell me?"

"Yeah. No. I mean I can't… le-leave. I can't." Charlie looked suddenly terrified, like the time he's gotten lost in the supermarket when he was five. His heavy breaths redoubled. "You shu-shouldn't be here."

"Damn straight I should. And what are you talking about? Where were you going?" Charlie didn't reply. "Oh, God, Charlie," Don whispered. "You're scaring me. Can't. Okay, you can't." Don grabbed Charlie's hand and squeezed it in both of his, realizing that they were both shaking by now. "So you can't. That's okay. Whatever it is, that's fine."

Charlie was still crying; his hand in Don's was clenching and unclenching spastically. "Hey, hey, stop it. You're gonna make yourself sick."

Charlie spoke in a little-boy voice. "I think I'm s-sick already, Donny. I think I am."

"Yeah, you're sick, you're sick all right. You're sick in the head. No, you're sick. No. You're okay. You're just fine." By this point Don's heart was racing and he wasn't sure of what he was saying anymore. The first words that came were the first that spilled out. He couldn't remember a time in his life when he'd been so scared. He pulled Charlie to him, feeling his little brother shiver, holding him and letting him cry. "You're okay, you're just fine." Don rubbed Charlie's back in little circles, searching wildly for something else to say.

"Give me a night, Charlie," he murmured at last, his face partially hidden in Charlie's mess of dark curls. "I don't care what's wrong. I don't care if you can't tell me. Just give me a night. It'll be better in the morning," Don swore. "It'll be okay."

And the next morning Charlie had seemed better, hadn't even mentioned that he had spent the entire night crying into his brother's chest. They had never spoken of it again, and Don had never remembered that notebook again either.

Present Day

Until today. It made sense somehow, at some basic level. It was as though Don had known it at the back of his mind all along, although he was fairly sure he hadn't.

"Charlie," Don said quietly. "That… night. When I came back from college and you were writing something…" He could have laughed at the vagueness of that statement. "That's what you were doing?"

Charlie nodded glum confirmation.

A torrent of what if's manifested itself as stomach acid and rose to the back of Don's throat. "If I hadn't… do you think you would have?"

"No," Charlie said quietly. "I doubt it."

"I'm just as happy not knowing," Don said blankly.

Charlie's laugh was watery. "Yeah. Me too."

"So, you don't think about it…"

"Anymore? No. Don, I swear."

"If you do," Don said firmly, "I want you to talk to me. Anytime, any day. Charlie."

"I'm fine, Don," Charlie insisted.

"Yeah," Don said sarcastically, then reached up and roughly thumbed some wetness from his brother's face.

"No, really, Don. I mean… I'm okay." Charlie offered a genuine half-smile and wiped the rest of the tears away himself. "I mean, I feel exponentially stupid right now, but besides that… you won't, like, tell Dad, will you?"

"Not if you don't want me to, Charlie," Don promised. "But I think you should."

"I will. Eventually." Charlie rubbed the bridge of his nose.

" And I think you should go to Finn Montgomery's funeral," Don added quietly.

Charlie shook his head dissmissively. "Nah. I wasn't going to."

"I think," Don said, a little more firmly. "That you need to."

Just like that, Charlie was closing up again. "I can't, all right?" He blurted out, throwing his hands up. "Why are you pushing this?"

"I think it might help."

"Don," Charlie said, fighting to keep the whimper out of his voice. "I can't."

Hearing those words sent a shiver up Don's spine. "I'll go with you," he offered.

Charlie looked over at him doubtfully. "You would?"

Don nodded. "Yeah. I will."

Charlie looked dangerously close to breaking into tears again. "Thanks, Don," he said softly.

"It's no problem. Charlie…" Don hated to say it. "I have to go."

"I know you do." Charlie nodded. "I'm so sorry. I guess I really could've chosen a more convenient time to, um. Tell you."

"I'm just glad you did," Don said honestly. "I hate to go. Are you okay?"

"Yes! Yeah, I mean… I already said I was." Charlie rubbed his jaw. "I think… I'm going to call Larry. He helped out a lot on this to, and I think he deserves to know. Y'know?"

"Yeah," Don responded noncommittally. "Listen, Charlie, you me and Dad are going to that new diner tonight. No protests. You need to get your mind on other things. You guys meet me there around seven, okay? We can… talk. If you want."

"Um. I don't think I'll want to. But dinner sounds great. Thanks, Don. We'll be there." Charlie smiled.

Don nodded, returning it. And as he turned to leave the room, he had to fight back the sudden irrational urge to add, 'hey kid? I love you.' But such sentiments were generally meant to be left unspoken.

End

So, what didja think? Too much sentiment? Too much crying? Don OOC? I only really liked a few lines of this myself, but if I only posted what I think I've done well on, nothing would ever get posted! Please review!