Alan woke up without knowing why; he lifted his head from the pillow and listened, automatically reaching across the bed--but no, Margaret was sleeping down--no. Margaret was gone. The house was perfectly silent and still and empty, but for him. Charlie was gone. Don was gone. He was the only one left, in this room where he'd loved his wife, where his sons had been conceived, where Don had said he had to leave.
Alan turned over, shifting into the center of the bed, closed his eyes, and thought again about moving. He'd find someplace new, bright and compact and empty of memories. He couldn't sell the house, but he could rent it out to some young family, a couple with kids who'd need rooms to dream in, a solarium and a yard where they could run around. He'd throw in the piano; kids should learn to play, Margaret had always said that.
He could almost see those hypothetical kids, sitting side by side on the piano bench, playing scales a half-beat out of time and pushing back and forth at each other with their shoulders. They both slammed on the keys, once, twice, and then Alan was awake again, grabbing the ringing phone, his heart racing with the same terrible mix of fear and hope that he felt at every call.
"Hello?"
There was a silence, long enough for Alan to hear the thudding of his own heart, the dark waiting stillness of the house. The man on the other end of the line took a shaky breath.
Don said, "Dad, it's me."
"Donnie," Alan said, nearly a shout, sitting bolt upright, rubbing one hand over his face and squeezing the phone painfully tight. He could barely speak for all the things he wanted to say. "Don, are you all right? Where are you?"
"I'm--" Don said, and then stopped. "I'm--Dad, I can't come home."
Staying upright was suddenly an enormous effort; Alan braced himself against the mattress and bowed his head. "Don--"
"I'm sorry," Don said quickly, and Alan could hear the strain in his son's voice, much too familiar. "I'm--Dad, I'm so sorry. I can't. There are some things I've--I can't come back."
Almost numb, Alan said softly, "I understand."
"No," Don said. "Dad, there's--there's something I need you to do for me. I need you to go out to the garage. There's--I just--go out and look in the garage, all right? I locked the door, you'll have to take the key."
Alan stared into the dark, trying not to think of what this might mean. "Don, please--"
"I'm sorry," Don repeated, his voice nearly breaking. "Dad, tell... tell everyone that I'm sorry."
Don didn't say anything else, and Alan took a deep labored breath and said the only thing he could. "I will, son."
In a faint, small voice, Don said, "Thank you," and then hung up. Alan slowly lowered the phone, turning his head to stare out the window. Don had been here--had been in the garage--but he couldn't come home.
There are some things I've... done? Seen? Alan couldn't imagine it--and then he found he could, and didn't want to.
Alan lowered his face into his hands and steeled himself for whatever Don might have left in the garage, whatever made him so sure he could never come home again, and then he pushed himself slowly to his feet. He put on his robe and slippers before he left the room, shuffling along like an old man on unsteady legs, holding on to the railing as he walked down the stairs.
The key to the garage hung on a hook by the back door; he took it and held it in a closed fist as he let himself out into the cool night, crossing the driveway to the garage without hesitating. If he let himself hesitate, he might never do what Don needed him to, and he'd given his son his word.
The hinges creaked as he pushed the door open; he'd been letting things go. The first thing he noticed was the sound, after all the silence: the washing machine was running. The normal, homely sound of it chugging away somehow made him feel everything would be all right in the instant before he switched the light on and saw the body on the floor.
Charlie. Lying curled on the cushion of his old chair with something folded up under his head, wearing a heavy coat and blue jeans and sneakers. Charlie.
Breathing.
Alan stumbled closer, falling to his knees on the cold concrete, reaching out a shaking hand that stopped just short. There was a bright pink scar beside Charlie's left eye, and his hair was a short mess of curls; his face looked gaunt under the five o'clock shadow, paler and thinner than he'd been in July.
Alive.
Alan finally dared to touch him, settling his fingers against Charlie's cheek and feeling the warmth of skin and the rasp of stubble. This wasn't a dream. Charlie was home.
"Charlie," he whispered, barely able to get the word out. "Charlie." Alan moved his hand to Charlie's shoulder, shaking him gently. "Charlie, wake up."
Charlie moaned, a sound familiar from a thousand efforts to get him out of bed on time, and Alan's eyes prickled, his vision blurring. Charlie. He wiped his eyes quickly with his free hand, blinking them clear in time to see Charlie's eyes open, a frown forming on his forehead as he looked around with an unfocused gaze.
"'s Don?" he murmured. Charlie's words were thick and slurred, but the question was clear, and Alan's heart stuttered in his chest at the prospect of answering it.
"I don't know," Alan said after a moment, but the words barely seemed to register with Charlie, who was still looking back and forth around the garage.
"Safe?" Charlie finally said, and Alan realized that he was badly disoriented, barely recognizing his surroundings. Surely if he'd needed medical attention Don would have taken him to a hospital, would have at least said something. Charlie looked up directly at him. "Safe?"
Alan squeezed his shoulder. "You're safe now, Charlie. Everybody's safe. It's all right."
"Drugged me," Charlie said, emphatic and briefly clear, but his eyes sagged shut, his head dropping back to rest on the makeshift pillow. It looked like a quilted flannel jacket.
"Can't--" Charlie murmured, waving one hand, and Alan heard a painful echo of Don's words: I can't--I can't come home.
"Hafta sleep," Charlie whispered, going limp again.
The washing machine shut off, a sudden cessation of sound. Alan let his hand slide from Charlie's shoulder to his throat, checking his pulse, but it was steady and strong. Charlie had been drugged, and wherever Charlie had been, whatever Don had done to get his brother back, Don couldn't come home.
Alan thought briefly of what he should do next--call the FBI, call a doctor--but Charlie was breathing, and Alan couldn't move away from him so far as the phone in the house, couldn't even take his eyes from his son's face. The best he could do for both his boys now was to stay right where he was. Morning would be soon enough to do more.
Don had packed up his apartment before he left, triaging the boxes according to every scenario he could think of for his possible return, for if he never returned. He was only stopping by now to pick up a few things, ignoring the squared-off stacks of his former life and heading straight for the bedroom closet.
The lockbox was on the top shelf, and his fingers twisted out the combination before he had to think. He carried it into the kitchen and laid it down on the table, staring at the contents under the stark overhead lights, feeling the total dislocation of being here again after everything.
This apartment had never been where he really belonged, which made it a little easier; entering the garage at his dad's--Charlie's--house had made him almost dizzy, and he didn't like to think what would have happened if he'd tried to go into the house, or if he ever set foot in the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office again.
Of course, if he ever set foot in the office again vertigo would be the least of his worries.
His hand hovered over the opened lockbox, wavering back and forth from his badge to his gun. He took a deep breath and picked up the Glock, and the gunmetal was cool in his hand and felt just right as he picked it up, the weight familiar as an old friend.
He stared down at the gun and thought that this was the problem, right here: when you gave up your life to save someone else, you weren't supposed to find yourself still alive at the end of it, wondering what to do next.
Terry was on her way out the door, rounding up the last of the paperwork she'd brought home to work on over the weekend. She grabbed her cell phone on the first ring. "Lake."
Don said, "Hey," and Terry froze, hair standing up on her arms and the back of her neck. "This is going to get awkward in a hurry if you've moved in the last three months."
Terry closed her eyes, took a breath, and pulled herself together. She was dressed for work already, her gun and badge clipped to her belt; that helped. She went to the front door and looked out. "I'm right where you left me, Don. Where are you?"
"Not on your doorstep," Don said. "But I did leave you something."
Terry shifted her hand to the deadbolt and then hesitated, an ugly wordless suspicion creeping in. Don had been desperate, and smart about leaving, and he'd been gone for months, doing God knew what. "You have any idea how creepy that sounds?"
"Sorry," Don said, and the light bantering facade cracked a little; she could hear real contrition in his voice, and the systemic exhaustion of a man in a war zone. "I fell in with a bad crowd."
"I'll bet you did," Terry said as she unlocked her door. She opened it slowly, but Don really wasn't there; the only thing out of place on the porch was the gray lockbox on the welcome mat. Terry stepped out to stand over it, but she didn't touch the box. She kept her eyes straight ahead, looking across the street at her neighbor's front door.
In her ear, Don said quietly, "I missed you, Terry. I really could have used a partner on this one."
"I missed you too," Terry said, crisply enough to almost contradict the words. "I get the feeling I'm about to be missing you even more."
The box at her feet was just about the right size to hold a gun, a badge, and a letter of resignation. She thought she could predict the letter's entire contents, even the date: it would be a day or two before Don had fallen in with that bad crowd. And Don wanted her to pick up this live grenade and carry it into the AD's office; there was no way she'd walk away from that without taking fire.
"You told me once you'd never lie for your partner," Don said.
Terry smiled and rolled her eyes, despite everything. Trust Don to remember that ten years later. "You're not my partner anymore, Don. You're my ex. I've got a soft spot for exes lately."
"Yeah?" Don said, and for that one syllable they were just talking; Don was just expressing not-quite-idle curiosity about her personal life. Terry sighed and crouched down, laying a hand on the box, and she heard Don sigh too. "Terry, I've gotta go."
"Yeah," Terry said, slowly picking the box up, sliding one foot in to cover the small square of yellow paper that had been hidden beneath it. "I know. Good luck."
She closed her phone and pocketed it, finally looking around as she straightened up. A small car was pulling away down the street, accelerating steadily and in a straight line. The morning light was clear and the car was less than a block away; she could have made out the license plate number if she'd tried.
She didn't try. She looked down before the car reached the corner, bending down again to pick up the Post-It. It was written in pencil, smudged by her shoe but still readable, still recognizable as Don's handwriting. Ten digits and four words: if he needs me.
Terry looked up, staring down the street in the direction Don had disappeared.
"God damn son of a bitch," she said, in tones of wonder. "You did it."
Charlie woke up with his cheek on Don's coat, and for a couple of breaths everything seemed to be all right. But he was sleeping in his coat and shoes, and Don's coat didn't have Don inside it, and he opened his eyes on a strange room. Everything came back in a cold awful rush. Charlie shut his eyes again for a minute, trying to remember what he could about where he was. There had been a man who'd told him he was safe, who'd seemed kind even through the thick haze of semi-consciousness; the man had known his name, which must mean he'd talked to Don. Don had said he'd be safe--Don had drugged him.
Charlie opened his eyes again and looked around, freezing automatically when he realized he wasn't alone. It was the man from before, the one who'd been there the first time Charlie woke up.
Charlie relaxed a little when he realized the man was asleep sitting up, his head bowed. Charlie sat up, clenching one hand in Don's coat, and looked at the man more carefully; he was the second person Charlie had ever seen sleeping, and Charlie couldn't let himself think about Don right now.
The man was wearing a plaid robe and slippers, and Charlie found that he couldn't summon up much fear of a man wearing slippers. He was old, stocky, his hair mostly gray. He had a prominent nose and olive skin, and Charlie realized abruptly that the man had sat beside him all night--light was filtering through the windows now--on a cold concrete floor. Charlie himself was lying on some kind of cushion, more comfortable than plenty of places he'd slept, but the man hadn't intruded upon it.
Charlie looked around again. His backpack was sitting on top of the washing machine at the far end of the room, and three of the walls were covered in--Charlie's throat nearly closed, his heart lurching in his chest--chalkboards. But then he saw what was on the boards. For a moment he couldn't grasp it; it was too wild, too far from all the work he'd ever done. Then he let himself think big, think astronomical, and it was beautiful, bold if not yet elegant. His fingers itched for chalk to take up the work; he could see where the reasoning was going astray, and he longed to set it right.
He forced himself to look away, closing his hands into fists. He couldn't interfere with the work on the boards. It belonged to someone--to the old man, perhaps. Maybe that was why Don had brought him here. Maybe the man was a mathematician, someone who might be able to identify him. Don had said, after all, that he knew people who would be able to help Charlie find out who he was.
And then Don had drugged him and brought him here and vanished, leaving him alone with this old man, who had clutched his shoulder and told him he was safe and who had stayed by his side all night. That wasn't an act of professional courtesy, from one mathematician to another; it wasn't even the kindness of a colleague to someone he'd worked with in the past. The old man knew him, cared about him, which meant that Don had somehow found out who he was when Charlie himself didn't know, and then found this man--
No, Charlie realized, lowering his face into his shaking hands as it all came together. He was getting the causality backwards. Don hadn't stumbled into Charlie's path and then somehow developed a plan to bring him here. Don had always had a plan to bring him here, from the moment they met, from before that. The hunger in Don's eyes that very first day was finally explained: Don had already been looking for him then, and Charlie had been the prize at the end of his search.
Don had told him he wasn't a killer because Don knew who he had been; Don had brought him to California because this was where someone was waiting for him--someone who already knew Charlie's name, the name he'd only learned when Don had accidentally called him by it--because of course they'd told Don what his name was when they sent Don looking for him. It even explained why Don had resisted having sex with him: Don had been there to rescue him. He wasn't supposed to get so involved with Charlie, nor to take advantage of him.
And now Don was gone because his job was done, because he'd returned Charlie to...
Charlie tipped forward onto his knees, trying to look into the man's down-turned face, raising his fingers to his own nose. It wasn't the same line; the old man's hair wasn't as curly as his own. He had a broader, heavier build than Charlie. But his hands were curled loosely in his lap, and his short, tidy fingernails were just the same shape as Charlie's bitten-down ones, and he had sat beside Charlie all night, and Don had brought Charlie here.
Charlie couldn't think about what Don had done to him in the last twenty-four hours, couldn't think about Don at all without a cold howling empty feeling creeping inside him and making his bones ache and his stomach turn. He pulled Don's coat into his lap, clutched it hard against his stomach to steady himself, and forced himself to remember the last thing Don had said, because he had to work with the data he had.
When you wake up you'll be safe, and no one will ever hurt you again. Not even me.
Charlie had been utterly under Don's power by then; Don had had no reason to lie to him. But he had said Charlie would be safe and then brought him here, and that had to mean that Don thought the old man wouldn't hurt Charlie. That meant that either Don knew the old man and trusted him, or he knew the old man's relationship to Charlie, and knew it was one that would cause the old man to protect Charlie.
He shut his eyes again, his mind turning away from the solution, trying to find another, any other scenario that would explain the evidence without leaving him so terribly vulnerable to disappointment.
Maybe this man had used Charlie, the way Williamson had used Charlie; maybe this place was where he'd kept Charlie before (but the work on the boards wasn't practical, it was beautifully theoretical). Maybe Williamson had stolen Charlie from the old man (but Williamson had said he only left bodies behind him, so the old man ought to have been dead if Williamson had ever met him) or maybe Charlie had run away from the old man and Williamson had found him later. The old man wanted Charlie back, to force him to keep working (maybe the work on the boards wasn't theoretical at all; maybe it was just a bigger terrible job than Charlie had yet imagined--maybe the old man was going to force Charlie to destroy the universe from this bare chilly room littered with boxes and sports equipment and laundry baskets).
Charlie had to stuff a hand into his mouth to muffle the hysterical giggle he felt welling up in his throat, grasping desperately for the next step in the logical chain. Why had Don told him he would be safe, and why had the old man repeated it?
But that was obvious: they told him he would be safe so he wouldn't try to escape, a simple inverse of Williamson's habit of assuring Charlie that he would be quickly killed or apprehended by the police if he were out on his own. Charlie pushed himself to his feet before he could think about it, before he could let himself fear it, and picked his silent way across the concrete floor to the windows letting in the early sun.
There was a door between the windows, and the knob turned under Charlie's hand. When he opened the door a chilly breeze blew in from the open space outside. Charlie shut it again, a little too fast; the door banged shut and behind him the old man said, "Charlie?"
There was no anger in his voice; it was entirely a question, soft and rising at the end. As if he might not be Charlie, or might not deign to answer.
He braced himself and turned. The old man had gotten to his feet and stood there in an entirely diffident posture, with a look of strangely mingled joy and worry on his face. Charlie took a breath and chose a hypothesis to test. "Dad?"
The old man's--his father's--face lit up with joy, and he said, "Charlie," more firmly as he crossed the space between them with his arms open. Charlie smiled cautiously and stood still to be hugged, squeezing his eyes shut and telling himself it was a hug, just a hug, just like Don--but he couldn't think of Don--and then the old--his father--was loosening his grip, stepping back with one hand on Charlie's shoulder. He seemed at a loss for words, and just said, "Charlie," again.
Charlie managed a shaky smile, but he had to look away after a moment; his gaze fell on the chalkboards, and he shifted his weight toward them. His father squeezed his shoulder and gave a little laugh, then let him go. Charlie took a few quick steps over to them, letting his hand hover in front of the lines. He felt steadier, looking at the numbers, the expressions washing over him. It let him think a little. He ought to say something, to find out where they stood.
If he let the silence stretch too long his father would surely begin to ask questions Charlie wouldn't want to answer. He turned back to face his father, who was standing there watching him. He had that same hungry look in his eyes Don had once had--but Charlie couldn't, couldn't think of Don--but he had to know.
"Did you..." Charlie had to stop and swallow and force the words. "Did you send Don to find me?"
His father's expression shifted into something pained. "I didn't send him, Charlie. Nobody sent him. The FBI couldn't put him on the case, but he had to find you. He told me he was going before he left, and I--I gave him my blessing."
The FBI. Don had been an agent. Charlie understood suddenly why he'd always been encouraging Charlie to go to the police; Don had thought of them as the good guys, his own side. But if he'd come after Charlie without being assigned the case--if he'd come to Charlie's father for his blessing--then he'd had some prior personal connection to Charlie, to Charlie's family. But if he'd been a friend, why not tell Charlie so? If he'd wanted so badly to get Charlie back, why abandon him now?
His father said, "Charlie, do you have any idea where your brother went?"
Charlie stood very still, his mind gone blank. He opened his mouth to say he didn't understand, but something down in his stomach understood perfectly; he felt queasy and otherwise oddly numb. He should be panicking, his stomach said. He should be screaming. He kept his hands open at his sides, his eyes on the cool green slate just out of his reach.
From far away he heard himself make a noncommittal questioning sound, only a little shaky. "Hmm?"
"Your brother, Charlie. Don. He didn't sound like himself when I talked to him, I'm worried about him."
Charlie dared a glance toward his father, who was frowning a little now, but still looked only concerned, not angry. Charlie shook his head as he turned his back. "I don't know. He didn't tell me what was going on, he just--left me here."
His father said nothing, and Charlie jammed his hands into his pockets and looked around for chalk, trying to focus his eyes on the boards, on anything except the memory of the way Don had looked at him, the way Don had said no and no and no to him and then yes and I never wanted to hurt you, the taste of blood in Don's mouth--blood is thicker than water--the taste of come in Don's mouth--because Don was his brother, his own brother and he hadn't known. And Don hadn't told him, and Don was gone.
Softly, his father said, "Charlie, aren't you going to ask me where your mother is?"
Arms holding him tight, and a soft sweater that smelled like everything good; Charlie's heart jerked into his throat and he turned before he could think, saying, "Yeah, where--" before he saw his father's face.
He looked knowing and terribly, horribly grieved; Charlie had known the man only minutes and still the pain on his face took Charlie's breath away. It had been a test, and Charlie had failed it--but worse than that, his mother was not here, his mother was gone and Charlie should have known it.
Charlie turned his back on his father, shutting his eyes tight and wrapping his arms around himself--he'd left Don's coat--his brother's--Charlie took a breath and nearly gagged, nearly sobbed, everything wrenching out of place in his chest as he held himself frozen tight, forcing everything down. He couldn't fall apart now. He couldn't. He had to be quiet, he had to be still. He had to get through this. He was on his own and he had to get through this.
But the one memory he had--just one, and he'd treasured it and shined it and called it up a thousand times since it had come back to him--lost all the sparkle of anticipation he'd attached to it. His mother would never hold him again, he would never feel her arms around him or smell the way she had smelled, would never be able to ask her whether she had been scared that day or angry or just excited. Whether she had been proud of what he could do.
Charlie wiped his face with his hands, but his eyes were dry. He still had the memory, a little thinner and fainter now, but still his as much as it had ever been. He wouldn't think about the rest, not yet. He turned to face his father, who stood a little more than arm's length away, the grief in his face a little less now.
His father held out one hand. "Let's start over. My name is Alan Eppes, and I'm your father."
Charlie swallowed hard, and put his hand in Alan's.
"I'm Charlie," he said. "I'm sorry."
Larry couldn't have said why he stopped by the Eppes house at a barely-decent hour on the first Monday morning in January. It wasn't that he didn't know his own reason, only that some things were better left unsaid, even in the privacy of one's own mind.
The night before had been the last of Hanukkah. Charles had observed once, as offhandedly as if the same were not true of him, that the first Hanukkah after his mother's death had been difficult for his father. Alan had lost both his sons in the past six months. Larry had not gone so far as to develop a hypothesis for the outcome of this set of conditions--not in words--but it was barely breakfast time and he was knocking on the front door.
Nothing happened at first, and Larry's anxiety crept toward articulation. He was raising his hand to knock again when the door opened slowly, swinging just wide enough to reveal Alan standing in the gap.
"Larry," Alan said, frowning at him. "Good morning."
He looked more bemused by Larry's presence than Larry would have expected; over the past months they'd developed a fine understanding of, and on Alan's side a significant tolerance for, one another's eccentricities.
"Good morning," Larry said, standing his ground on the welcome mat.
Alan didn't open the door further.
"Larry..." Alan was wearing a robe and slippers, and despite his limited vocabulary, he seemed oddly wide awake.
"Is this a bad time?" Larry asked.
Alan smiled and frowned all at once; the expression looked slightly painful.
"No," Alan said. "Not bad."
He seemed about to elaborate, then glanced back over his shoulder.
"Why don't you come in," he said, finally moving back and opening the door wider.
"I'd be honored," Larry said, and stepped inside.
The interior of the house was warm and comparatively dim, but there was a light shining through the kitchen doorway. Larry turned toward it automatically, taking a step in that direction and then freezing when he caught sight of the man the light silhouetted, standing beside the dining room table. Larry blinked several times, but the vision remained, statue-still but quite real.
"The wavefunction collapses," Larry murmured. "The mathematician lives."
Alan grabbed Larry's shoulder when he would have taken another step toward Charles. He looked back at Alan's face to find his friend's expression profoundly guarded, and then turned back toward Charles--who at second glance was barely recognizable as Charles at all.
He had the same face (if thinner and freshly scarred) under the same hair (badly cut, but Charles had done worse of his own volition in the time Larry had known him) and wearing the same clothes.
But the man standing in the dining room wasn't anyone Larry knew, nor anyone who knew Larry. He looked as wary as one of the deer Larry had often seen on hikes, who'd learned that humans might proffer food and might brandish weapons and all smelled about the same.
"Charlie," Alan said, his voice painstakingly gentle. "This is Larry Fleinhardt. He's a professor at CalSci. Charlie and I have just been getting acquainted, Larry."
"I see," Larry said carefully, making no sudden moves. There are more things in heaven and earth, Fleinhardt, than are dreamt of in quantum physics. Charles alive and not-alive indeed.
Charles cleared his throat and said, in a valiant attempt at matter-of-factness, "I don't really remember anything. I know Don found me and brought me home, but even that is a blur."
And a lie, Larry thought, judging by the careful cadence of his words; he'd heard Charles give lectures that way countless times. On the first day of class, or giving a talk to Larry's students, when he was nervous about his reception and rehearsed the exact phrasing too many times beforehand. Still, after whatever he'd been through, Charles surely had earned the right to keep his own counsel--at least until he was sure he could trust the people who told him they were his family and friends. Larry began to walk toward him, moving slowly but steadily in the absence of any objection.
Charles stood his ground but kept looking past Larry--not to his father, Larry realized, but to the door. He adjusted his own trajectory to clear Charles' path to it, and thought he detected some infinitesimal release of tension in response.
Larry stopped at arm's length, looking Charles properly in the eye, and said, "I'm glad you're back, Charles. Whether or not you remember why I care."
Charles smiled a little at that, tense and fleeting, but he unbent enough to say, "We worked together? Are you in math?"
"Yes, and no. Astrophysics."
"Oh." Charles looked toward the garage as if he could see it from here. "The boards, in the garage."
Larry nodded. "We were working on supergravity."
"Supergravity," Charles repeated, and the wariness in his eyes was replaced by something like wistfulness. "Did you find someone else to finish it while I was gone?"
Larry smiled. "No, Charles. I never imagined anyone else could."
Don swapped the Honda for a pickup truck he was pretty sure could make it cross-country. He had enough cash to get going, and his one best set of ID, set up under Witness Protection protocol and unlikely to be found by the FBI unless they decided to do an audit of every individual in protection, looking for him.
Depending on what Charlie said, maybe they'd think he was worth the bother. He'd find out when they showed up, or when they didn't; the phone number he'd given Terry wouldn't be hard to trace with a warrant in hand, and he didn't plan on letting that phone out of his sight. They could find him if they got serious about it.
He tried not to think of what Charlie might be saying or not saying--to their father, to the FBI--but even that was better than thinking of that terrified look on Charlie's face when he realized what Don had done, of how cold and small he had looked on the floor of the garage. He'd find out the truth in the worst possible way, and there was every chance Charlie would say something that would leave their father knowing what Don had done to his brother. At least then his father wouldn't regret him not coming home anymore. At least then they'd know how much help Charlie needed.
Don kept his eyes on the road, and tried not to think about any of it, but there was nothing else left to think about. He had nothing now but time and the road in front of him, leading nowhere but away from everything and everyone he loved.
He pushed down on the gas and didn't look back.
His father and Larry didn't expect him to say much. After Larry ventured the theory that Charlie shouldn't be told too much about what he should remember--in case he began to remember things the way he thought he should and not the way he really did--they didn't even talk much directly to him. Instead they talked to each other--about neighbors and sports and books they'd read and work they'd done--making comfortable asides to Charlie so that he didn't feel neglected. It was fascinating to watch; he thought they must be friends, and it was strange and wonderful to be so readily included in their company, to see how real people lived, in houses, over coffee and eggs.
But his fascination with them could only keep everything else at bay as long as Charlie concentrated intently on their conversation. Whenever his attention wandered, he was reminded of how he had ended up here. He studiously avoided looking at the wall filled with framed photos. He didn't want to see his mother there, find her face foreign and frozen behind glass before he could remember it himself.
He didn't want to see Don there, because then it would all be utterly, absolutely true.
Not long after all their dishes had been cleared and his father had poured everyone a second cup of coffee, his head began to ache. Soon after that, Charlie was swamped by an enormous, crippling wave of exhaustion. His eyes wouldn't focus; he could barely hold his head up, and his chest ached with every breath.
"Could I--" Charlie said, and then stopped short, realizing he'd interrupted Larry, realizing it was the first time he'd spoken in more than an hour. Both men were staring at him.
"I'm sorry," he said, huddling smaller in his chair under the weight of his weariness and their scrutiny. "Is there somewhere I could lie down?"
Alan smiled--gently, but pained, Charlie found when he forced his eyes to see--and said, "Your room is upstairs, Charlie. The last door on the left."
Your room, because he had lived here--owned this house, in fact, a concept beyond his capacity to grasp. He barely owned the clothes he was wearing, the pencils and souvenirs and video game in his backpack. To own a house was unimaginable. What would he do with it? Keep his enemies in the basement?
"Charles?" Larry said, and Charlie realized he had giggled aloud at that last thought. He felt drunk with exhaustion, fuzzy-brained and warm and limp.
"Sorry," Charlie mumbled, pushed himself to his feet and made his way to the stairs. He could feel them watching him, but they stayed at the table and let him go on his own. He was grateful for that, so much it hurt. Or maybe it was breathing that hurt, and gratitude that made his eyes sting. He climbed the stairs with an effort, running his left hand along the wall and the doors that he passed, until by process of elimination he arrived at the last one.
The door opened on a bedroom; he hesitated on the threshold for a moment, but it was just a bedroom. Nicer than a motel room, but functionally similar: there was only one double bed, covered with a plaid comforter, and bookshelves where there would be a TV, and a closet door instead of a bathroom. But the window let in sunshine and Charlie was too tired to care much about the details. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him, and stumbled to the bed, yanking the covers back.
He was leaning down, his hand on the mattress, when the smell of the sheets hit him. It was the exact same smell that had risen from his backpack the first time he'd opened it; the smell of his clothes, the same detergent, the same house. Charlie pushed away, stumbled and sat down hard on the floor, his teeth clacking together as formless panic scrubbed the softness of sleep out of his brain. Everything was sharp-edged and bright, everything was threatening; Charlie didn't dare flee through the bedroom door, there were people downstairs--maybe not downstairs anymore, if they'd heard him hit the ground, they could come for him, and there was no bar or lock on either side of this door.
Charlie scrambled across the floor--not even standing, crawling clumsily on the carpet, slithering when his legs wouldn't cooperate fast enough--until he'd reached the furthest corner. He put his back to the juncture of the walls, curled up tight, and buried his head in his arms. His own shirt smelled right: like him, and like sweat, and maybe a little like Don. Between one breath and the next Charlie was sobbing, violently and painfully, and he didn't stop.
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