Missing Persons

They had guns.

Charlie had gotten so used to people with guns that it didn't immediately strike him as strange--never mind threatening--and then the guns were pointed at him, and hard hands were yanking him off his bike. They barely let his feet touch the ground as they hustled him toward a car. He looked around desperately in the gray light before dawn, and saw only two other people, one on a bike and another walking.

He opened his mouth to yell--for help, as a warning--but someone hit him hard in the mouth. He was still seeing stars as a gun fired twice, very loud, very close to his ear. He saw the walker and the person on the bike both crumple to the ground as his mouth filled with blood, and he didn't even think about resisting further. A rough hand reached into his pocket, took his cell phone and tossed it to the ground with a small plastic clatter, and then they shoved Charlie into the backseat of the car.

No one had said a word.

Don heard about the mess at CalSci about ninety seconds after he got into the office that morning. The shootings kicked up jurisdictional issues out the ass with one body in the street and one on university property, and three or four different agencies were fighting over turf. So far, the Bureau was keeping its nose out. If the rumors floating around were true, though, about single-shot kills from a distance, sooner or later people would start thinking sniper, and then they'd be hauled in again. If it was another copycat, months after the last sniper case, kicking off another chain of copycats... Don didn't want to think about it.

Through the day, Don left Charlie a handful of voice mails: breezy, annoyed, teasing, and terse in succession, calling whenever he could spare enough time to get to a part of the office with decent cell reception. He and Terry and David were up to their necks in evidence for the Magruder case, trying to get warrants. Don knew it was stupid to be stealing attention from it to worry about Charlie--he was Dr. Charles Eppes, people would be talking about it if anything had happened to him, and they would be talking about it to Don--but it nagged at him anyway.

He went over to the house for dinner, hoping to see Charlie and stop thinking about the damn shootings, get his head back into his own work--or get the scoop on them, if Charlie had been incommunicado all day because he'd been sticking his nose into the case--but his dad said Charlie had been at school all day.

"He called last night at midnight and told me he was going to stop by his office for a few minutes before he came home," his dad said, waving a hand. "I locked the doors and went to bed. Charlie probably fell asleep at his desk. He does that sometimes when he's got a big project."

He gave Don a little look, like he was scrupulously not saying A big project involving math, not that you pay any attention to Charlie's work when it doesn't involve your work, which was a lot to not say in a split-second glance. Don heard it loud and clear anyway, including his dad's merciful decision not to get into it right then. "He'll come home when he gets hungry."

Don grinned. "He's not a cat, Dad."

He thought about mentioning the shootings, but bit his tongue. There was no need to worry his dad if he didn't know about it. It was early yet; maybe the rumors were wrong, maybe it wasn't any kind of sniper at all.

His dad smiled back and said, "No, he's a grown man, and he'll be here when he gets here. Now grab a couple of plates, dinner's almost ready."

They ate together, just Don and his dad, and Don soaked up his dad's total unconcern over everything. They talked about baseball, and about his mom, which they never did with Charlie. His dad told Don stories about when Don was little--before Charlie was born--and Don tried to remember the last time he'd hung out with his dad without Charlie around. It was kind of nice.

The doorbell rang as they were clearing off the table, and Don went to see who it was as his dad made up a plate to put in the fridge for Charlie. It was Amita, and she smiled as brightly as ever at Don. He smiled back automatically.

"Hey," Amita said, "I just needed to talk to your brother," and right then Don knew, even though Amita was still smiling, even though his dad was still humming in the kitchen.

He saw Amita's eyes widen as he said, "He wasn't at school today?"

He had to get his voice under control; that had come out harsh, unsteady. He had to be under control for this.

She shook her head, starting to look scared instead of just startled. "I haven't seen him all day--I tried calling twice, but he didn't answer, and Larry hasn't seen him--"

Behind him, his dad called out, "Don, who is it? Don't keep them standing on the doorstep there, you're as bad as your brother."

Don shut his eyes, shut out the sight of Amita's face, closed off the thought process--he should call local law enforcement, he should call Terry, he should give Charlie's cell a call just to rule it out--and put a calm, professional smile on his face.

"It's just Amita," he said, looking back at his dad's untroubled face. "Charlie gave her a message for me, that's all. I'm gonna go get him."

"Oh," his dad said, frowning slightly, but Don could see him dismiss it. "All right, then."

Don nodded, grabbed his keys, and stepped out onto the porch. Amita was still standing there, and she looked more scared than ever.

"Don," she said in a small voice.

"Come on," Don said, "I'm gonna want you to tell me everything you know in the car."

He called Terry, because it was still hours too early to call anybody in an official capacity without some kind of solid evidence. She didn't bother telling him any of the things he already knew about time frames and procedures, just said she'd meet him on campus. They checked Charlie's office first, and though it was a mess there was no sign of struggle. Nothing seemed to be missing. Charlie's backpack and jacket were gone. Amita checked some programs he'd left running on the computer and said it looked like he'd been there until around five in the morning.

They checked the nearest bike rack next. Amita seemed encouraged when they found Charlie's bike was gone, and Terry shot Don a grim look and sent her back inside, telling her to keep trying Charlie's cell phone.

"Okay," Terry said, when Amita was out of earshot. "So he took his bike from the rack and headed for home at five in the morning, and now it's been fourteen--"

"Closer to fifteen," Don muttered, looking around, checking the lines of sight to the bike rack.

"Close to fifteen hours," Terry finished, her voice clinical, steady, as if this was just a case. "If he'd been in some kind of accident, he'd have turned up by now, since he appears to have had his ID with him. If he decided on his own to disappear--"

"The shootings were over here," Don said, and started down the sidewalk, not quite letting himself break into a run. When he got out of the shadow of the building, he was looking out at the street and parking lot where the bodies had been found, and--

"Home's that way," Don said, pointing. "If Charlie took his bike from here and headed on a straight line toward the house, he'd have biked right through that parking lot at five in the morning."

"Word is the bodies were found about five-forty," Terry said. "So we've got at least a circumstantial connection."

Don started walking, and Terry followed him without saying a word. He passed one scuffed chalk outline and then another, skirting the remaining streamers of crime-scene tape. Don looked around desperately, trying to triangulate to--to what? To where Charlie's body had fallen? To--

He just stood there, staring into the falling darkness, his mind skipping from one possibility to the next: crime-scene snapshots of Charlie, bloodied, beaten, Charlie's wide eyes blank, Charlie, Charlie, and then Terry said, "Don," in a low, urgent voice. She'd gotten ahead of him, and when she started running, he had to sprint to catch up. When she stopped short between two cars, he nearly ran into her.

He didn't understand what was going on until she dropped to her knees, and when he crouched beside her, he heard it, saw it. Charlie's cell phone was vibrating on the asphalt, rattling in a slight indentation. Of course it was on vibrate, Charlie would never hear it if he was working, but usually he'd feel it in his pocket, or he'd leave it balanced somewhere and hear the clatter when it fell. Charlie complained sometimes that they should offer interesting vibration rhythms as well as ringtones, Charlie--

Don lunged for the phone, hand grasping for that tiny plastic connection to his brother, but Terry held him back. "Don, gloves."

She reached into her pocket for one and used it to pick up the vibrating phone. Don spotted the smear of blood on the blue plastic just as it went still.

Don sat down like his strings had been cut, right about the time the local PD showed up to check into this possible third crime scene to go with their murders. Terry took the liberty of calling the AD to alert him to the potential kidnapping case--Charlie being who he was, the AD didn't say a word about her calling him directly, just said he'd assign a couple of agents right away--while Don sat on a curb with his head down. Terry was tempted to join him, but one of them had to keep going, and if this was a real case--involving Don's baby brother--he really shouldn't be any closer to it than he absolutely had to be.

Terry was standing beside Amita, keeping a steadying hand on her shoulder as the police began to question her, when Don's phone started to ring. Terry squeezed Amita's shoulder and went to Don, who had taken his phone out of his pocket and was staring at it like he'd never seen it before.

"Don," she said, looking around for a police officer, wondering how they could record the ransom demand, "Don, is it--"

"It's my dad," he said. His voice sounded rusty, and he shut off the phone altogether, stopping the sound in mid-ring. "Probably wants to know where I am. Where Charlie is."

Terry looked away while Don buried his face in his hands, and then he said, "I'm going to have to--Terry, I have to go, I have to--"

"I'll drive," she said firmly. "You're in no condition."

Don just nodded, and she gave him a hand up. He let go as soon as he was on his feet. He didn't say a word, not to Terry, not to Special Agents Henne and Preston, who'd shown up and started taking over the scene, flashing their badges and pulling rank on the police--not even to Amita, who was trying desperately to hold herself together. Terry told Preston where they were going, and Preston gave Don an unhappily assessing look which Don, thankfully, didn't seem to notice. Preston took down the address and said he'd see her soon.

Terry kept her hand on Don's arm, guiding him through the parking lot to where she'd left her car. He buckled himself in and then sat frozen; she didn't think he was even breathing. She couldn't let herself think about what they were about to do. She'd had to deliver a lot of bad news in her career, but never like this. Never to family.

Don flinched when she turned off the car in front of the house, and she said softly, "Don, do you want me to tell him?"

Don shook his head. "I've got to. I can't let him hear it from someone else."

At any other time she would have objected to the idea that she was "someone else," but Don sounded like nothing but his resolve was holding him together and there was no point keeping him out here arguing about it.

Terry nodded and said, "I'll come in with you."

Don didn't object, or give any other sign that he'd heard her.

The front door was locked, though there were lights on in the living room. Don let them in, and they only made it as far as the foyer before Mr. Eppes appeared. "Don! I've been trying to call both of you, where have you--"

He stopped short when he spotted Terry, and gave her a puzzled smile. "Hello, Terry."

"Mr. Eppes," she said, nodding, and set her hand lightly at the small of Don's back.

"Dad," Don said, and Mr. Eppes' attention was immediately riveted on his son. Don's voice sounded broken, sounded naked like she'd never, ever heard it before, and he reached out a hand to his father. Mr. Eppes took it in a tight grip; she could see the tendons standing out in his wrist.

"Dad," Don repeated. "Dad, Charlie is--"

Mr. Eppes pressed his free hand over his mouth, his eyes widening as his face went sickly pale, and Terry could hear Don choking on the word missing while the word dead hung horribly almost-audible in the air.

"We believe he's been abducted," she said quickly, because she couldn't leave either of them to suffer until Don could get the words out. "He hasn't been seen since early this morning, and we found his phone near a crime scene. The investigation is getting underway right now."

Mr. Eppes stared at her blankly, and then pulled Don to him in a tight hug. Don leaned his head on his father's shoulder like a little boy. Terry could see him shaking, but stayed where she was, outside their two-man knot of grief. She heard Don say, "I'm sorry," in a faint, unsteady voice, but she had no idea who he might be apologizing to.

Charlie, probably, knowing Don.

"I'll go," she said quietly. "Don, don't forget to turn your phone back on."

It was a very strange sensation. Charlie could feel that he was cold, and he could feel the place where the inside of his elbow hurt because they'd stuck him with needles, and he could even feel the place where they'd hit him in the mouth hard enough to bleed, but he didn't care.

He didn't care about much of anything, but he could still think, in a slow scattered fuzzy way. He thought he had good reasons not to answer their questions, so he didn't. He giggled when they got angry with him, even though it wasn't exactly funny. He recited digits of pi whenever they asked for numbers, no matter what numbers they asked for. He knew a lot of digits of pi. Probably all the numbers anyone could want were in there somewhere, if you went on long enough.

They asked him a lot of things he didn't know--things nobody knew, codes and decryption keys, impossible things--but he never told them he didn't know. He had a feeling it was important for them to think he knew.

They dumped a bucket of water over him and left him shivering on a dirt floor until he started to care again, the giggles and the floating sensation ebbing away into the muddy floor. Caring was a sick cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, a throbbing behind his eyes, fear rising up to choke him--but he knew it was all just a matter of time. He was holding up his end. He was keeping them talking. He was staying alive, mostly unhurt. Don would be there soon. Don would find him.

Nobody had to tell Don not to go to work when there was a command post in the dining room, but Terry showed up around nine in the morning to tell him anyway.

"You're on leave for at least the rest of the week, no matter what, AD's orders," she said.

Don just nodded. He hadn't slept, but he'd showered and changed clothes and downed a lot of coffee and talked, one at a time, to Henne and Preston and Abrams and Cash, watched them come and go and make a lot of quiet, urgent phone calls. Everything was sharp-edged and remote. Charlie had been missing now for twenty-eight hours. There had been no ransom demand, no contact from the kidnappers.

Don wasn't allowed to touch the files being assembled six feet away. His father was handling production of coffee and breakfast for everyone in the house. Terry was crouching in front of him where he sat in an armchair, looking up at him intently.

"David and I have the Magruder case under control, don't even think about it."

"Yeah," Don said. "No, I won't."

A latex-gloved hand touched his shoulder, and Don looked up at a woman in a vaguely medical uniform.

"I need to take a sample," she said. "For DNA testing."

Don stared blankly for a moment before he nodded and rolled up his sleeve. Terry squeezed his shoulder and disappeared.

Larry's first impulse, when he came around the corner and spotted Amita sitting on the floor with her back against his office door and her face in her hands, was to flee. It might save steps, to go straight to Charles and ask him what on earth he'd done now, and get him to apologize before the star-crossed love of Doctors Eppes and Ramanujan destroyed the delicate departmental détente between Math and Physics.

He became distracted by the words--delicate departmental détente--and stopped walking, and then Amita looked up. She was pale, her face bare of makeup and tear-stained, her eyes red. Larry remembered abruptly--how could he have forgotten?--that Derek Albright from Applied Physics had been shot dead yesterday morning, along with an undergraduate named Casey from over in GeoSci. Just possibly, Amita and Charles' nascent romance was not the issue here.

He hurried across the short distance as Amita pushed herself to her feet, his mouth was open on a question he couldn't voice as Amita said, "Larry, the killers--they took Charlie."

His verbal skills never really blossomed under stress, but Larry knew he would think later that staring mutely at Amita, his mouth hanging open, was a particular low point. For now, he didn't care: Amita was crying again and Charles was lost.

Larry thought he should probably hug Amita, or at least bring her into his office, but she blocked his path to the door. He stood staring out the windows at the bright morning sunshine, listening to Amita's muffled sobs in the summer-silent corridor, thinking about all the things you could never really grasp when you first heard about them: black holes, an infinite universe, zero Kelvin. And this.

Don spent a couple of hours thinking of things Henne should be doing, and telling Henne to do them. After Don's dozenth good idea, Henne said, "Fuck, Eppes, I know how to do my job, let me do it!"

He ended on a near-shout that woke something Don had been trying to let sleep, and Don was swinging quicker than he could think. He'd have broken Henne's nose if his father hadn't caught his wrist, jerking him back and forcing him to turn away.

Don yanked out of his father's grip, rubbing his shoulder awkwardly with a hand that didn't want to uncurl from its fist, not looking at anyone, fury shaking through his veins. His father said, "Why don't you go outside for a little while, Don," and he went.

He knew there was nothing he could do. He just couldn't stand doing it.

Don was standing in the garage, looking at the chalkboards, when Henne came out to talk to him. Charlie had erased something sloppily on one of them, so there were broken bits of numbers around the edges. Don reached out and touched the smear of chalk dust, and when he took it away there were clean, empty spaces on the board where his fingers had been.

He turned around at a knock on the doorframe, and Henne was standing on the threshold, only a little warily.

"You wanna sit down?" Henne asked, gesturing vaguely toward Charlie's papasan chair. Don kicked over a milk crate and sat on that instead, letting his hands hang open between his knees, and Henne walked over and crouched in front of him, looking him steadily in the eye.

"We found the car they took him in," Henne said. He didn't sound happy about it, and Don was glad he hadn't been macho enough to stay on his feet for this. His stomach was somewhere around his shoes as it was. He covered his eyes with one hand and nodded, and Henne went on.

"It was abandoned in the parking lot of a 7-11 in Glendale. No surveillance tape, and we haven't found any witnesses yet. There was a small amount of blood in the back seat. The type matches Charlie's, we're still running the DNA comparison. We found fingerprints on the rear window. They were smeared, but we picked up partials, and they match Charlie's. They were the only useable prints we could pull from the entire vehicle."

Don looked up, trying to think. "Smeared, like--they started to wipe them off and didn't finish?" That could be good, if they were getting sloppy, or bad, if they were feeling pressed.

Henne's mouth went tight, and he shook his head a little. "Dragged," he said, clipping the word off sharply. "Three or four inches."

Don could see it, sickeningly clearly: the mark of a hand trying to gain purchase on a smooth surface, pulled away. He put his head in his hands and tried to push the image away, to think. Everything he wanted to suggest now--check tire tracks, check for stolen cars in the vicinity, check, check, check--Henne and Preston and the others who were actually seeing the evidence would already have thought and tried. Henne was only being polite, updating him like this.

"We're trying to run down the attendees of the lectures he gave last month on his work with you, but they were pretty much open to the public and no one's come forward to mention anyone suspicious yet. We're doing everything we can, Don, you gotta believe me."

"I know," Don said quietly. He did know; he'd watched enough of their activity to know. The case just wasn't breaking. No ransom demand, no contact, no sloppy trail of evidence, just Charlie's blood and prints in a car in Glendale.

"Thanks," he muttered, and Henne nodded, straightened up and left. Don waited until he was gone before he got up and stumbled as far as Charlie's chair, sinking down into its unsteady hollow and closing his eyes.

Sometime around thirty-six hours they found Charlie's backpack, abandoned on a public transit bus in North Hollywood. About the same time, Charlie's bike turned up at another bike rack on campus, a quarter of a mile from where they'd found his phone, locked up with Charlie's bike lock. That night, a plastic bag containing his clothes--right down to socks, shoes, and underwear--was found in a bathroom stall at LAX. The fingerprint and DNA searches for the spaces involved yielded up dozens of possibilities, a dizzying array. The prints were almost certain to be mostly worthless, and odds were good any real evidence would be lost in the noise. There were no prints or DNA on any of the items themselves except Charlie's.

There was blood on Charlie's shirt, and wrapped up in his jeans was a Ziploc bag full of what appeared to be Charlie's hair. It had all been cut, not pulled out, so there was no testable DNA.

Don looked at the plastic bag, the mess of dark disconnected curls under the harsh light, for barely a second. Then he turned and walked into the kitchen and threw up in the sink.

Charlie started answering their questions properly after they broke the little finger on his left hand (it wasn't fair for something so small to hurt so much, he couldn't believe how much it hurt, couldn't think of anything but how much it hurt and how many more fingers he had). He stammered and mumbled and repeated himself, making things up when he didn't know what they meant.

He only said "I don't know," when it wasn't true, I don't know, I don't know in time to the beat of his heart and the nauseating waves of pain. I don't know, I don't know, and it drowned out everything, even Don is coming, Don will find me.

At 4:59 AM--forty-seven hours and fifty-nine minutes after Charlie disappeared--Don was sitting on the edge of the tub in the bathroom he'd once shared with his brother, his cell phone in his hands. It hadn't rung since his father had last tried to call him.

The time turned over to 5:00 and Don held his breath, the bright white light of the overhead fixture seeming brighter, stinging his eyes. At 5:01 he tried to inhale and started to cry in wracking, painful sobs, inadequately muffled against his hands, even as he told himself that forty-eight hours didn't really mean anything. He didn't stop until he passed out on the floor, half from hyperventilation and half because he hadn't slept in days.

He woke up twelve hours later. His dad had tucked a folded towel under his head and covered him with a blanket, but Don hadn't missed anything. There were no new developments. Sixty hours in, Charlie was just as missing as he'd ever been.

On the fifty-eighth day, there seemed to be calendars everywhere, reminding him of the date. Don kept his eyes turned down, kept looking away. Terry was watching him; Terry knew why.

He could barely do paperwork. Every time he signed anything he had to date it, nine five zero five. Thirty years to the day after nine five seven five--the date Aunt Irene had embroidered on a soft yellow blanket--the date Don's life had changed forever. The date his father had lifted him up to the edge of a hospital bed and introduced him to his brother.

Don sat in a bar, buying drinks just often enough that no one encouraged him to move it along, barely tasting them. Fifty-eight days. They hadn't even begun to plan a party before it happened, though Don had made some threats on the basis of his own thirtieth birthday. He hadn't had the faintest idea what he was going to do for a present, and wouldn't have come up with anything until the weekend before, maybe the night before. Twenty-nine years of baseball cards and books with numbers on the covers. He'd been sure he could do better this year, sure that he and Charlie were really getting to know each other, working together.

So much for that. This year he hadn't gotten Charlie a present at all.

After midnight, Don stood on the sidewalk outside the bar, ran himself through a couple of field sobriety tests just to be sure, and then drove to his dad's. The house looked dark and quiet, and he let himself in with his key, walking softly toward the stairs only to stop short at flickering bright light in the living room. Charlie was on the TV screen, seven years old, his mouth moving without sound as he talked to their father behind the camera; Don could almost hear him.

Charlie's head turned abruptly, and he dashed away from the camera, and then Don could hear him, memory washing over him with almost hallucinatory clarity: it had been Charlie's seventh birthday, and Don had been twelve and bored and ignored. He'd climbed up a tree and onto the garage roof, and launched a paratrooper attack with GI Joes, including a couple of the new recruits Charlie had just unwrapped.

On the screen, Charlie ran toward the garage, into the bright plastic hail of action figures, screaming. Don remembered the rough shingles under his belly and elbows, remembered Charlie's high, thin voice yelling, "Don, stop it, stop it, you're killing them!" The picture jerked and Charlie was kneeling on the grass, gathering up GI Joes and clutching them protectively close, small and bright in the scratchy, faded image, his head down and his face invisible.

Don walked into the living room and sat down on the floor, a stack of video tapes between him and his father's knee. Twenty-three years ago Charlie bounced to his feet, laughing again with his arms full of toys, and ran.

Coop showed up two days later out of the blue, on his way from somewhere else to somewhere else. He called from an hour away. Don named a bar outside of town, and Coop said he'd be there when he got there. His father was watching him as he hung up his phone.

"David," Don said calmly. The lie was as smooth and easy as any he'd ever told undercover, and the easing of worry in his father's face was its own reward.

"I think it's girl trouble," Don added with a wink, and his father was drawn in, snorting a half-laugh.

"He should be talking to someone who knows something about it," his dad said.

Don just smiled. "I'll be home for dinner," he said, lightly, like there was no question of him not being home for dinner, and his father nodded.

He was at the front door when his father called from the kitchen doorway, "I love you, Don."

He looked back, wondering if he'd fooled his father for a second, if his father thought this might be the last time he'd see Don for weeks, months, forever, and was letting him go anyway.

"I love you too, Dad," he said, but he didn't quite pull off the smile.

Coop was there before him, and the bartender set their beers down as Don settled onto a stool.

"So, I heard," Coop said, and there was no need to say what he'd heard. "Came as soon as I could."

Don nodded. It was no wonder it'd taken a while for word to get to Coop; they'd ruled out any kind of public media appeal early on, knowing that the kind of professionals who had Charlie wouldn't be swayed by a tearful father but might be spooked by an angry brother in the FBI. Spooked kidnapers meant dead victims. Don's throat closed on the beer, and he set the glass down hard.

Coop's shoulder bumped his. "Kind of surprised to find you here, as a matter of fact."

And that was the reason Don had had to see him, no matter what his father was home thinking right now. Billy Cooper was the one person Don would never fool with the Dutiful Agent scam he was running.

"Yeah," Don said slowly, "Well, right now I got nowhere else to be."

Coop nodded at that. He might generally support going off half-cocked, as long as it meant going sooner, but Coop knew as well as Don did that Don was only going to get one shot at this thing. He had to sit tight and pull down every scrap of intel he could get before he made his move.

"You know Eddie's still in business, down in El Cajon."

Don nodded. Eddie was strictly gray market: guns and prescription drugs and anything else almost legal and totally untraceable. Information, too, when you put the right kind of squeeze on him, which was how Don and Coop had gotten to know him in the first place.

"If I need anything, I'll know where to find it," Don said. He'd want a weapon that wouldn't get back to him, or to anyone else, when the time came.

"Yeah," Coop said. "Figured you would."

Coop gave him a thoughtful, measuring look that reminded Don of the first day of their partnership, the skeptical way Coop had said, "So you're our new manhunter, huh?"

Don sat up a little straighter, and Coop gave him a small smile and a smaller nod, and started talking about baseball.

They finished their beers, and Don didn't ask whether Coop wanted another, but tapped his fingers against his empty glass and said, "I better get home."

"Yeah, I got places to be, unlike some people," Coop said. They walked out to the parking lot together, and hugged one-armed between their trucks. Coop grinned at Don as he unlocked his door. "Tell Charlie the next round's on him, next time I'm in town."

Don grinned, feeling the same anticipatory surge of adrenaline he'd always gotten from working with Coop, looking forward to a job about to go down. The certainty rushed through him that he could do this, he would do this, and he and Charlie and Coop would be back here drinking beers together somewhere down the road.

"I'll tell him," Don said, and Coop slammed his door and drove off without looking back.

When the break came on the seventy-third day, it wasn't the oblique reference or buried allusion Don had told himself to expect; it was right at the top of the daily Bureau briefing. He read it through, forcing himself to keep still and quiet, pressing his hands to his desk to keep them from shaking, and only looked up after he'd scanned it, carefully, three times. No one was looking at him. No one was shouting that this was it. No one else saw what Don was seeing.

Three days earlier, a coordinated crew of six had robbed a shipment of condemned cash headed for destruction from the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis. They'd taken less than a quarter of the cash--close to $20 million, not a shabby payday--and had executed the robbery in slightly under two minutes. The driver of the armored truck had reported that one of the men had actually called off a countdown as they worked, which appeared to have been the limiting factor on how much money was taken. They'd gotten away clean, leaving no useable physical evidence. Their faces had been masked.

No one had used the word mathematical precision in describing the job in the briefing, but it was all Don could think of. This was the job Charlie had stopped the Charm School Boys from pulling, but this time it had been done right.

Don knew what he wanted to check next, but he also knew enough to know that this was the earliest of early indications. He had to risk a reality check before he spiraled off completely into investigation by wishful thinking.

"Terry."

Terry looked over her shoulder at him and then swiveled her chair in his direction, giving Don her undivided attention.

"What's up?"

Don tilted the briefing toward her. "You see this? Robbery of a shipment of cash headed out of a Federal Reserve bank for destruction?"

She nodded. "Little bit like the Charm School Boys, except there was no pattern of bank robberies leading up to it. So really not like the Charm School Boys at all."

Don nodded slowly. "Yeah, yeah. I guess not."

Terry was watching him closely now. "Don? You think it is?"

Don shrugged. "It's obviously not them, they're all in prison."

And not a conventional copycat, either: their bank robberies had made the papers, but the public had never heard about the biggest heist the Charm School Boys didn't pull off. He'd told Charlie a lot about how that went down, bragging to his wide-eyed baby brother.

Terry nodded, and then stood up and walked over to him, leaning over his chair without quite touching him, speaking too softly to be heard by anyone else.

"Don, how are you doing?"

Don blinked as he looked up at her, as clear-eyed and honest as he knew how to fake. "Terry--"

"Seriously, Don, I know you didn't get much time off, and Henne told me you finally went through the files--" finally, because obviously Terry, for one, had expected him to crack sooner. It might not be long now before she found out she'd been right. "So I want you to tell me, honestly, are you okay?"

Don let his shoulders slump, flipping the briefing shut as he looked away. Terry wouldn't expect him to be able to meet her eyes. "I--you know. Some days, I think I can--and then some days I can't think of anything but--he's still out there somewhere."

When he glanced up at Terry's face, he could see her being kind enough not to say out there somewhere in an unmarked grave, probably.

"Okay," she said finally. "If you want to talk about anything, I'm here, all right?"

Don nodded, and Terry touched his shoulder in passing on her way back to her desk. He set the briefing on a stack of papers and left it there for a day and a half, as though it didn't matter at all. He didn't research anything but their current case from his computer.

At home that night, he started putting it together from publicly available wire reports. There had been no neat pattern of bank robberies leading up to the big heist, but there had been bank robberies.

Four in northern Missouri, all in different cities, in the three weeks before the hit on the armored truck. Eight in Arkansas, three in Southern Indiana, four in western Kentucky and two in western Tennessee. The same MO was shared between no more than two of them. There was no pattern to the frequency or locations.

They'd scored anywhere from two hundred to six thousand dollars, and though some had involved brandished weapons, none had resulted in injuries to bystanders, so in the absence of a pattern they wouldn't be top investigative priorities. They were in different states, local to different FBI field offices, being investigated by a total of eight different agencies, none of which seemed to be talking to each other yet. But they were nearly all inside the St. Louis Fed District, and had all taken place at least four weeks after Charlie was taken and ended two days before the hit on the armored truck, and they were all unsolved.

Charlie had told him once, quite confidently, that bank robbers stuck with a pattern; here were bank robbers who didn't. Charlie had used the pattern to catch the Charm School Boys, but whoever had pulled off these robberies wasn't leaving that kind of trail, and wasn't getting caught.

It was a lot of information, taken together, and it all pointed to a coordinated op planned by someone who was too smart to leave a trail and knew how to get the information they'd need to hit a Federal Reserve shipment. It had Charlie written all over it, but Don didn't think he could--or should--go to Terry and tell her that his evidence was that there was no evidence, the pattern was that there was no pattern.

Even if anyone did believe him--if they accepted that Charlie might be alive, if Don wasn't just strongly encouraged to take a good long leave to get over his brother's death--it would be the same as the original investigation all over again. No one who knew Charlie would have anything to do with it, no one who cared about him, no one whose first priority was getting him out safely.

They would, in fact, want to arrest whoever was responsible for planning these crimes. Don didn't like the thought of Charlie in prison one bit more than he liked the thought of Charlie wherever he was now. If Charlie was doing this, he was under duress, maybe suffering from some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, whatever. Charlie needed rescuing, not arresting, and as long as Don was the only one looking into this, he could make those kinds of decisions.

It wasn't like he had any privileged information, anyway; if the people actually investigating these crimes managed to solve them, then they'd find Charlie, and Don would probably thank them for it. But if Charlie was as smart and as good as Don thought he was, nobody else was going to find him.

"Just let me find you, buddy," Don muttered, and then he realized he was talking to his computer, shut it down, and went to bed.

He couldn't act on a single data point, no matter how big it was: after a job like that they'd be long gone, and with $20 million in untraceable cash, they'd have no trouble going just about anywhere. Despite the payday, Don had a feeling that whoever had Charlie wasn't going to want to stop now. They knew what he could do. If they were smart, the next one wouldn't be so high-profile, but they'd pull something else. If Don could find the next crime, maybe he could get a handle on how to find them. Find Charlie.

On the eighty-first day he spotted it: a media report of a robbery three days prior, four armed men cleaning out an illegal high-stakes poker game in Denver. It was estimated they'd made off with close to two million dollars in cash, and naturally, despite the number of witnesses no one had come forward with useful information to identify the thieves. They'd left no evidence, and from what sketchy evidence local law enforcement had put together, they'd pulled the job off like clockwork.

Two data points formed a long and wobbly line in this case, but it was enough for Don to set things in motion. He'd already done most of the background work, but now it was time to get serious. Once he filled out his forms and spoke to the AD--assuring the man he'd speak to Terry and David himself, make sure they were up to speed--the clock was ticking. He was on his way.

The last two weeks were the trickiest. He was already committed but had to wait, had to keep his cool, and he had to continue looking for more information. Terry had an eye on him these days--waiting for the explosion--and if she found out before he was gone, she'd stop him. Luckily they got slammed with cases, one after another--a double murder and then another kidnapping, and this one took four horrible days to solve, following which Don slept twenty-four hours straight without dreaming at all.

When he woke up, he staggered straight to his computer to start prowling his usual news sources for signs of Charlie. It took him less than an hour to find a hotel robbery in Casper, Wyoming that had what Don was starting to consider the hallmarks of one of Charlie's jobs: it involved three men, none of whom matched the vague descriptions from the other two jobs any more than the rest of the population. Nothing about the MO connected it to the armored truck job or the heist in Denver, though Don thought it had a similar feel to one of the bank robberies in Kentucky, nothing he could have put into words. They'd gotten away with about $100,000 and various valuables estimated at twice that. Police had no leads.

Don was starting to feel weirdly proud of this string of slick, competent crimes. Mainly, he supposed, it was the habit of being proud of anything Charlie did. Partly it was the pride of knowing he was the only one who saw the connection between them. But partly...

This was how he'd commit crimes, if he were going to. You couldn't help thinking about it, when your job was to exploit the mistakes the bad guys made. After ten years, he knew just about every trick in the book, but he didn't know how to catch these guys--certainly he'd never be able to make a prosecution stick for most of them--and he had to admire that.

Their only mistake had been taking Don's brother, really--because Don wasn't going to stop until he'd taken Charlie back.

Alan woke up when the door opened, and he had a moment of sleepy confusion--Don was standing in the doorway, must have had a bad dream--but the Don in his doorway was far too tall to have come to him when he couldn't sleep. Or at least, he hadn't, not any time in the last twenty-nine years.

"Don," he said softly, and Don came inside, a dark blur in the dark room.

He crouched at the side of the bed, and when Alan reached to turn on the bedside light, Don reached out a hand to stop him.

"Don't," he said quietly, and his voice sounded strange. Not so far from that brave but frightened six-year-old after all. "Dad, I have to--"

And Alan knew, right then, that he was about to lose the only son he had left. He caught Don's wrist, unable to say a word.

Don shook his head, but didn't pull away from his father's grip. "Dad, I think there's a chance--like, a crazy, win-the-lottery kind of chance--that Charlie is still alive."

Alan caught his breath; it hurt to hope for that, to think of what Charlie's life might be like right now if he was still alive, and Don was talking about a big gamble for even that much.

"And I think there's a chance--like a struck-by-lightning-while-holding-the-winning-ticket chance--that I can find him. Dad, I think I can find him. I can bring him home."

Alan could see that, dreamlike and vivid: a slip-of-paper victory burning to ash in Don's lightning-struck fingers. He couldn't imagine Don bringing Charlie home at all.

"Donnie, don't do this. I can't lose both of you."

Don shook his head. Stubborn, always stubborn. Why had they ever told their little boy that he had to look out for his baby brother? Why had he ever listened?

"Dad, I have to. If there's a chance and I didn't try--"

And yet Alan couldn't bring himself to say to his son, There's no chance. Even to himself, he couldn't say Charlie is dead. And if Alan couldn't pull him back from this, then Don was already lost. Alan could see it clearly there in the dark, and maybe he'd always known it. Maybe Don had been lost to him from the moment Charlie was taken. Maybe it had all been borrowed time since then.

He raised his hand from Don's wrist to his cheek, and his son smiled unsteadily under his hand.

"I can't stop you," he said softly. Don's smile winked out.

Alan leaned up on one elbow. "Go with God," he said softly. "Find your brother. I love you both."

Don bowed his head, and Alan pressed a kiss to his hair, as dark and soft as the day he was born. Then he lay back and closed his eyes, and did not watch his son go away.

There was something unspeakably terrible about the sight of Don's desk, empty and clean. Terry forced herself to keep walking, and sat down in her own desk chair only a little hurriedly. There was an envelope tucked under her keyboard, a proper memo dated twelve days before, from Don to her and David, notifying them of his upcoming indefinite leave of absence. On a Post-It, in smudgy pencil, he'd written, I couldn't tell you. You'd have stopped me.

He hadn't resigned, then: that was something. He was allowing for the possibility that he'd come back. The Post-It, on the other hand, was alarming. She tore it from the page, crumpled it and shoved it in her pocket; eating it or burning it would be far too conspicuous. Then she picked up her purse and briefcase and walked right back out of the office, leaving David to find out for himself when he got in.

She drove over to the Eppes' house, quietly and methodically cursing morning traffic for the entire hour it took. When she knocked at the door, she had to wait a few minutes before Mr. Eppes answered. He gave her an almost wary look, but said rather lightly, "I'm sorry, Terry, but Don can't come out to play today."

She smiled almost despite herself. "Can I come in? Just for a second?"

"For a whole minute, if you want," he said, stepping back from the door.

She waited only until he closed the door behind her to ask, "Do you know where Don is?"

He didn't look surprised, or caught out. "He's visiting friends. Up in Minnesota, I think it was. Getting away for a while, trying to deal with things. It's been hard for him."

Terry nodded. He had his story straight. He'd protect Don as surely as she would.

"Good," she said, "Minnesota, with friends, that's a good place for him to be."

Mr. Eppes nodded, and when he offered her a coffee for the road, she accepted. He made it with milk and sugar, just the way she liked it, and it was a damn sight better than what she could get at the office.

Don had had a bag of IDs and cash in a storage locker, just waiting, for weeks. He cleared that out in the middle of the night, and by the time the sun came up he was officially in the wind. He had a choice of names to use, personas of varying stability, even one he'd used before in case he wanted a little history.

Two of the IDs he carried had Charlie's face and stats, just in case Charlie needed someone else to be when this was over.

He drove down to Eddie's, and he saw Eddie notice that he wasn't flashing his badge or asking for information. Eddie nodded, and Don nodded back, looking down at the case of handguns.

"See anything you want?" Eddie asked, after Don had been staring for a few minutes and the only other customer in the store had edged away.

He wanted his Glock. It fit in his hand like an old friend; he'd fired a good thousand rounds with it in the last three months, thanks nearly entirely to the shooting range. It had his fingerprints all over it, inside and out, and it was publicly and traceably registered to Don Eppes, backed by his ten years' exemplary service with the Bureau. Even if it weren't traced, it was FBI standard and might as well say FED on the side in letters of fire.

It was safe in his apartment with his badge, and Don had to fight through a moment like looking down from a rooftop, wanting so bad to go back and get it, get both of them, find some way to make this work on the level despite everything he'd done to get this far. Maybe, maybe he could keep control of the situation, maybe he could make it come out right, if he got lucky, if they listened, if--

But maybe wasn't enough, not when it was Charlie on the line. Don had already made his choice a thousand times, but he stood staring down at the array of weapons available to him and had to make it again. He was about to buy an unregistered handgun under a false identity without observing any kind of waiting period. It wasn't exactly the heat of the moment, rubber meeting the road, but this was the moment he had to make his choice for good.

Don took a deep breath and forgot all about his Glock and his badge. They were behind him now.

He tapped the glass decisively. "The Sig."

It was still a cop's gun, but he'd be damned if he'd carry some nickel-plated gangbanger's toy. "And I'm gonna need a car, something that won't light up every hot sheet from here to Vancouver."

Eddie had a little Honda that fit the bill, and Don's bag of IDs fit into a pocket of the duffle bag he filled with clothes, ammunition, and a backup weapon. The Sig rested under his arm, shoulder-holstered; it felt huge and awkward, but he knew by the time he got where he was going, he'd only notice its absence. It only took him ten minutes to find the hiding place already concealed in the backseat by the last criminal to own this car, thirty seconds to stash his and Charlie's real identification inside where nobody but a fucking narc would find it.

He was on the road barely after daylight, headed east, toward Charlie.

He'd chosen Chicago half randomly--because random was the name of the game--but he'd had his reasons, too. It was a big city, and Don had a better idea of how to operate in big cities than anywhere else. It was inside the territory of the crimes committed so far, which had stayed off the coasts and out of the Southwest, but not a city they'd hit yet. They were going through a lot of personnel, changing crews to keep from attracting attention, and that was going to create a pretty big footprint at a certain level. If they stuck with that technique, they were going to keep going through a lot of personnel, and if Don was in position when they worked their way around to Chicago, he just might manage to be one of them.

It felt almost easy; he knew the kinds of places to go, the attitude to adopt, the things to say to the people who talked to him. Inside of five days (after he'd found word of a robbery in Des Moines, new faces, no leads, a quick million dollars) he was standing behind a middle-tier dealer named Dre, watching over a drug deal, the Sig comfortable in its holster. He'd loaded it with gloves on, no prints on the rounds.

Eleven days later he'd shepherded half his body weight in coke safely onto the streets of Chicago and found newspaper accounts of two more robberies, one in Milwaukee, one in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati job was worrying him: it had included a murder, one of the robbers shooting a security guard in the head on the way out. It was unnecessary, sloppy. He would bet anything they hadn't listened to Charlie on that, and if they weren't listening to Charlie, Charlie was in more danger than ever.

But Don wasn't thinking about that now; he was watching another deal going down, keeping an eye on the other side's guns, because that was his job. When the shouting started and the weapons came out, he pushed Dre behind him with one hand and pulled the Sig with the other, because he was working on autopilot, because he'd had ten years of practice pushing people behind him. And when he saw a gun taking aim--light flashing on the nickel-plating--he brought the Sig down and fired for center of body mass, dropped the shooter cleanly.

They hustled out of there and he didn't think about it, because he'd had years of practice at that part, too. Dre kept thanking him, and Don kept brushing it off. It wasn't until later, until he was back in the bare little room where he was sleeping these days, that he let himself think.

He'd just killed someone--hardly more than a kid, carrying a flashy gangbanger's gun--and not in the line of duty, but to protect a drug dealer, a drug dealer who was paying Don to do that sort of thing so he could go on selling poison to Chicago's kids.

He tried to think about it, poking at what he'd done like a bruise, like skin scraped raw or gashed open. He could see the kid, but only as a body on a slab, a photo tacked up on a bulletin board; in Don's memory he was just a blur eclipsed by the flash of light off his weapon. He thought of the cops who would investigate, who would go down to some south side neighborhood to tell a mother or sister or girlfriend, who would do their best but find nothing: ballistics would be a dead end, forensics at the scene too confused by the crowd who'd been present, witnesses willing to talk as plentiful as free lunches for footsore detectives.

He could only see it as a case; a frustrating one, one that would make him angry with everyone from himself to his team to forensics to--to Charlie--because of the unfairness of it, because no one should get away with a murder just because the victim had been the wrong kind of guy. The thought of having Charlie around to be angry at caught his imagination more than the man he'd killed, and Don put his head in his hands.

He couldn't detach himself from this. This victim wasn't his to investigate, his to champion; he'd killed that kid, he was the perp, the murderer. Don shuddered as it finally, finally hit him, like a physical thing, like a punch in the gut. He felt sick, felt pained, doubling over with his arms wrapped around himself, gasping for air. He'd killed somebody. He'd done this thing, he'd turned his back on everything he'd ever been, and still he couldn't hold that poor dead kid (a life, snuffed out, ended, over forever, just like that, and who knew what he might have been if Don hadn't--) in his mind. Still it was Charlie he kept thinking of.

The sick stabbing pain in his belly was just like he'd dreamed: Charlie whispering "If you loved me you'd have found me by now,", and it felt a little like dying already.

He was a murderer now, a dealer's hired gun. That was what he was capable of, if it meant getting to Charlie--and after tonight, he'd be Dre's favorite. Information, introductions, it would all be a hell of a lot easier to come by, and all he'd had to do was kill some kid in the middle of a drug deal.

Don sucked in a breath, forced himself to lie down like he was going to sleep. As long as tonight got him to Charlie, he'd deal with it. Getting Charlie out was all that mattered now. Charlie was the only one who would have a life worth going back to after this, and Don meant to get him back to it.

Early the next morning, Don went to the post office and rented a box. Later, from a few blocks away, he dropped a heavy, padded envelope in the mail to himself--his wallet, and Charlie's. He could go and get them (go and get his real self, go and get Charlie) anytime he was ready to lay claim to them. For now, they were best kept out of the way.

In the next sixteen days Don found a report of a robbery in Fargo and saw half a news story about a shootout in Billings that seemed to have been sparked by the theft of several labs' output of crystal meth. There was no way of knowing from the half he saw which victims might have been shot during the thefts instead of after; the reporter talked like it didn't make a difference.

He couldn't sleep for more than an hour or two without having horrible, vivid nightmares of prison. It was him on the inside some nights, his father writing him to tell him they'd found Charlie's body, but it was worse when it was Charlie he dreamed behind bars, scared or dead-eyed. It took longer, after he woke up, to convince himself those ones weren't real. He took to cat-napping at odd hours, and spent a lot of his long dark wakeful nights sitting around with Dre, now that he'd become one of the boys. He said as little as he could, but listened to every word, every rumor about who was doing what in Chicagoland.

Sixteen days of listening, talking to Dre's friends and some guy a friend of Dre's knew, and a guy he had sort of heard could be found at a certain bar. That guy talked to a guy he'd worked for one time, and then Don was sitting in a noisy bar, across a table from a man with dirty blond hair and a smile not quite charming enough to raise Don's hackles. Nothing wild-eyed about this one; he was in control and sane and smart. Smart enough to be the guy using Charlie, Don would bet. And now he was interviewing Don for an opening in his organization.

Don watched his eyes for any sign of recognition. If this guy had ever so much as seen a photo of Don it might all fall apart right here. He could get himself killed, get Charlie killed, before he ever got closer than this. But so far, there was nothing. So if this was the guy who had Charlie, maybe he didn't know what Don looked like. Or maybe he didn't have Charlie, and this was a blind alley, and Don was sitting here having a beer with some random criminal while Charlie--no. He had to focus on the lead he had.

The guy was probing Don's past, but Don had had the entire drive across country to practice this and weeks since then to perfect it. He knew his story backwards and forwards, knew how much of it he wouldn't talk about. He was just a guy looking for work in a particular field of expertise. He didn't play any harder to get than anyone in his right mind would, faced with a mysterious job at an undisclosed location with a potential employer lots of people knew about but no one would exactly vouch for.

"I dunno," he said, fiddling with his beer. "We're talking, what? Shooting, smash and grab, something like that?"

"We're talking a lot of money," the guy said, giving Don a critical look.

Don snorted, settling into his identity, letting himself stop thinking about playing a role, stop waiting for the guy to notice his real self behind his alias. "Sure, money's great, unless you're dead. Then it's just paper in somebody else's hand. I like to know what I'm getting into."

The guy was silent, looking him over intently, but Don knew his story. He had nothing to hide. The blond guy said abruptly, "What's the most math you ever took in school?"

Don didn't think he could breathe until he heard himself say in a nicely puzzled voice, "I got to third base with a girl who took calculus, that count?"

The guy barked a loud, sharp laugh, and Don let himself give the guy a skeptical look as he took a sip of his beer to wash the cotton out of his mouth. Math, God, he was talking math. The guy was talking Charlie, this was it, and still he didn't seem to have twigged to Don. Don wanted to laugh, for one dizzy, horrifying second, at the thought that this might work.

"Yeah," the guy said, still smiling, "yeah, that counts just fine. Listen, I hear you do good work on guard duty."

"Yeah, sure," Don said slowly, like he had no idea. "But you look like you can take care of yourself."

"Oh, I do," the guy said. "But there's an item I have. An item that I would prefer not get lost or stolen. Lately I've been thinking it needs more security, and I'm thinking you might be just the man for the job."

And Don was glad, suddenly horribly fucking glad that he'd killed that drug dealer, that kid, because it was going to get him to Charlie. It was going to get this guy to make Don the fox guarding his henhouse. Don took another swallow of his beer and managed not to choke on it.

"Sounds kinda boring, just guarding some package," he said, and he almost actually sounded bored. Close enough for government work, like they used to say.

The blond guy snorted. "Weren't you just saying you wanted to know what you were getting into? Long periods of boredom, doesn't that sound good?"

"Only if I survive the short periods of terror," Don replied, raising an eyebrow.

The guy grinned. "See, smart. Smart. I like that."

"Smart enough to know it sounds like I should be getting combat pay."

They haggled the rest of the way through their beers, and then the blond reached a hand across the table to shake on it--ten grand base and two percent of every haul, not bad since he'd never be anywhere near the action--and said, "Williamson."

"Lenny McDonald," Don replied, without missing a beat.

Williamson grinned, tilting his head. "You don't look much like a Lenny."

Don shrugged easily. "My mom's the only one ever thought I did."

"Right," Williamson said. "Mac it is." He scribbled something down on a coaster and slid it across to Don. Don palmed it without looking.

"Meet me there tomorrow, six sharp. And I mean in the morning. I'll take you up to the location, you can start immediately."

"Sure," Don said, showing Williamson a cocky money-in-the-bank smile when he wanted to beg to go now, now, now. "Tomorrow, six sharp. See you then."

It had been one hundred thirty days since Charlie was taken when Don got into a car with the guy who had probably taken him. It was still dark, cold and--naturally--windy, and the chill got into his bones. Don was wearing a stocking cap and a quilted flannel jacket over his jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt. The Sig was tucked under his left arm in its holster, and he'd tossed his duffle in the backseat before he got in the front.

Williamson didn't say anything, except when they stopped at a drive-thru for coffee, and then he just asked what size. Don drank his coffee and stared out the window as they headed to the freeway. The coffee was bad, but no worse than he was used to. He sipped at it slowly and let the stomach-lining burn of it ground him. He was all nerves and adrenaline, and adding caffeine to the mix was probably a bad move, but he had no idea how much longer he'd have to keep running without a stop. If he and Charlie got an early chance--if Charlie said the wrong thing and blew it inside the first ten minutes--if Williamson did know who Don was and was just driving him out of the city to dispose of him...

Don crumpled the empty cup between his hands and slumped back in his seat, letting the sharp broken corners prick his palms as he watched the road signs go by from under his eyelashes. They were into Wisconsin now, and the sun was well up. A few miles past Janesville, Williamson took an exit and headed out on a two-lane road, north and east into the middle of nowhere. Don watched the turns, estimated the mileage as best he could. Williamson didn't seem concerned about him knowing the route. Given what Don was pretty sure he knew about Williamson, that didn't strike him as a good sign.

Williamson pulled the car into the gravel driveway of an ordinary-looking ranch house with an attached two-car garage on a tidy half-acre lot. There were trees along the fence line between the house and the next one to the north, branches half-bare, leaves gone red and yellow and brown. To the south was a much larger lot, the house set a long way back from the road.

The house had blue aluminum siding, the porch railing painted white. There were dying flowers in the flower beds and the grass had been cleared of leaves and cut in wide, even stripes. Williamson got out and headed up the drive to the side door into the garage, and Don followed him, duffle bag in hand, gauging the distances as he walked.

It was twenty feet from the car to the side door. Fifty feet to the trees at the south property line, a good fifty yards from the side door to the road. It would take ten or twelve seconds, running flat out--twenty under fire, in a serpentine pattern. Maybe as long as thirty, if Charlie was hurt or stumbled, and then there'd better be somebody waiting on the road, and Don had no backup to call for out here. They'd passed all of four cars in the last ten miles.

One last glance around and Don stepped through the door. It was dark in the garage after the dazzle of morning sunshine, and Don had left his sunglasses in a pocket of his coat; he just had time to blink before Williamson grabbed him, wrenching his right arm behind him. Williamson had five inches and forty pounds on Don, and he had Don's gun hand immobilized. Still, Don tensed for a second, about to break the hold, frantic--Charlie, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I blew it--and then his brain caught up with his muscles.

Don relaxed, letting Williamson shove him face-first against the rough-finished wall. It wasn't an all-out attack; if it had been Don would've been dead as he stepped through the door. This was an orientation.

Williamson dragged his right arm high enough to start putting serious strain on Don's shoulder, and Don turned his head and said, "Okay, boss, I got it."

In his peripheral vision, Williamson smiled. "You got it when I say you got it, Smart Mac. I am the boss here. I know more than you do and I am stronger than you are. I am in charge, and there are eight guys in this house who will all kill you as soon as look at you, on my say-so."

Don nodded, and resisted the urge to go up on tiptoe to ease the dull burn in his shoulder; he didn't really need the punch in the back of the head it would probably earn him. He listened to what Williamson was telling him, instead: eight guys. Figure eight hours of sleep apiece a night, so probably only four to six of them were on watch at any given time. If they were getting less sleep, there'd be more awake, but they'd all be less alert. Maybe as few as two or three on watch at night, if Williamson was telling the truth. Maybe Charlie would know, if he'd been paying attention...

"This is not to say I won't stand by my deal with you," Williamson said evenly, and Don trained his eyes on the wall and focused on Williamson's voice again. "But you need to understand how things work around here. We are not a team. I am the boss. You work for me. Everyone here works for me. You copy?"

"I copy," Don said, as calmly as he could.

Williamson would hold him here until Williamson felt his point had been demonstrated, and there was nothing Don could do but let him demonstrate it. Williamson liked Mac because Mac was smart: smart enough to know his place. Terry, Don thought longingly, would already know what Williamson's mother had been like, and whether he'd wet the bed as a kid, and his precise odds of killing Don in the next five minutes just to watch him die.

Williamson stood there in silence for a minute, and Don's skin crawled with the sensation of Williamson's breath on the back of his neck. Then he gave Don a hard little shove and let go. "Turn around, stay against the wall, spread 'em."

Don raised both hands, turned around, and leaned against the wall. Williamson shoved him again, open hand in the middle of the chest, and Don just widened his stance and spread his hands further. Williamson patted him down with his free hand, reaching under Don's jacket to pull the Sig from its holster. He pressed the point of his elbow to Don's chest as he examined the gun two-handed, and Don noted that Williamson never pointed the gun at him as he checked it; he was only going to threaten Don when he intended to threaten him.

Worse and worse: Don hated competent criminals. All the time that he'd been admiring Charlie's work, though, he'd been admiring Williamson's, too. That was crystal clear by now. He hadn't thought enough about that. He hadn't thought enough about a lot of things.

Williamson jammed the Sig back into its holster and continued the pat-down, shifting his restraining hand down to jam uncomfortably and unnecessarily hard against Don's belt buckle, just about where that morning's cup of coffee was sitting. He didn't find anything but the spare change in Don's pocket, and nodded in satisfaction.

"Stay there," he said, and Don didn't twitch a muscle as Williamson picked up his duffle and unzipped it. He wondered what he'd have to have in there to get himself summarily shot in the head. IDs for Charlie probably would have done it, but those, along with his own extra sets, were long gone by now. A cell phone might only have gotten him laughed at as it was confiscated, depending, but he hadn't risked it.

Williamson checked Don's backup weapon as efficiently as he'd checked the Sig, noted the boxes of ammunition, rifled through his underwear, checked the toes of his socks and the pockets of his pants, unzipped his shaving kit and examined the contents. He snorted at the first aid kit in the side pocket, opened it up and checked it, but it was all ordinary stuff in single-use packets. He flipped through the worn wallet that contained the McDonald ID and some cash, an old phone card and an expired condom and a piece of paper, soft with age, crumpled and smoothed and neatly folded and entirely blank. Williamson unfolded it, looking it over carefully, and then refolded it neatly and tucked it back in, right next to the condom. He dropped Don's wallet back into the duffle, zipped the bag, and tossed it at Don. Don caught it readily but didn't otherwise move, waiting for whatever would happen next.

"Well," Williamson said, turning toward the door into the house. "I guess it's about time you met him."

"Him," Don repeated neutrally, heart suddenly pounding double-time, feeling fluttery and wild in a way that he couldn't honestly blame on exhaustion or caffeine. This was it, this was really it. Charlie.

Williamson glanced over his shoulder with a knowing smile. "Hoping for a her?"

Don smiled crookedly back and shrugged, hoping his inability to get another word out looked like some kind of nonchalance. Williamson led him through the ordinary-looking kitchen of the house. There were two guys sitting at the table, both prominently armed, and Williamson said, "Sam, Jimmy, Mac," without particular direction as he unlocked the basement door. Don supposed Sam and Jimmy would get the drift, and he at least had two names to go with two faces.

He took a quick glance around, noting that Sam and Jimmy had lines of sight on both the garage door and the basement door, while the fridge and cupboards blocked the line from one door to the other. It would be a bad corner to get caught on. The other option was a doorway that probably led into the front room, but that would be worse, a complete U-turn in full view of the men at the table.

Williamson stepped back from the door and gestured for Don to precede him down the stairs. They were bare wood, and the floor at the bottom was cement. In the light of a bare bulb, Don could see a heavy door to the left at the bottom of the stairs, locked and barred from this side. A bright orange extension cord was plugged in to a socket and disappeared under the door. The framing around the door was solid, the gap above the floor barely allowing the extension cord to pass. The door wasn't getting busted down from the inside, not without SWAT gear. If he was locked in with Charlie, they'd be sitting tight for a while; any escape would rely on seizing a moment when the door was opened for them.

"Here," Williamson said, behind him, stepping to the right at the bottom of the stairs, switching on another light. Don turned his back on the locked door and looked at the other half of the basement, washer and dryer and furnace and water heater, shelves of unmarked boxes and various supplies. Williamson grabbed a sleeping bag, rolled up and tied with a ground mat and pillow, and handed it to him. Don took it, suppressing the giddy thought that this was just like going to camp as a kid, duffle in one hand, sleeping bag in the other. Waiting to meet his bunkmate, already calculating how soon he could call his dad and say he wanted to come home.

"You need anything, you use this," Williamson said, holding out a compact walkie-talkie. Don started to shift his loads to free a hand, but Williamson grinned and tucked it into the front pocket of his jeans.

"Banging on the door's a little unscientific," Williamson explained, without backing out of Don's personal space.

Don nodded and didn't back away from Williamson, holding his gaze steadily. Williamson jerked his chin toward the door and said, "Well, in you go, then. You're on the clock, Mac."

Don turned, shifting everything to his left hand as he took the few steps to the door, and lifted the bar. His hand didn't shake as he turned back the deadbolt. He had to take a step back as he pulled the door open, and Williamson was right behind him as Don took his first look inside.

He kept his left hand tucked between his thin undershirt and ragged sweater, pressed into the damp heat of his armpit as he worked out his calculations on blackboard six. The cold got into his fingers otherwise and made the healed breaks ache so badly that he couldn't see past chalk and slate to numbers and possibilities, and he had no time to waste in pain.

The final versions of the new algorithms marched across boards three, four, and five in steady rows, neatly recopied out of their beds of figuring. Now he had to work the pattern with several sets of plausible variables derived from the intel he'd been given, transforming possibilities into probabilities, a plan of action. He hated this part. It was mechanical and tedious. He couldn't quite hold all the calculations in his head, but also couldn't be bothered to slow his thoughts to the pace of his limping fingers and show all his work. If he was interrupted, he often lost his place and had to start over, and he was interrupted often--more often when Williamson left HQ. He could usually tell how far Williamson had gone, and how long it would be until he returned, by the frequency of harassment from the others. At least when Williamson was present he was only interrupted when Williamson wanted something, and the things Williamson wanted from him always related to his work.

Which wasn't to say that Williamson didn't have a knack for making those discussions unpleasant. The ache of his left elbow--constant whether he was cold or not, though he was almost always cold--kept that fresh in his mind, not that he was in any danger of forgetting. Not of forgetting Williamson, anyway.

"Fuck," he muttered, and lowered his right hand to rub his elbow. He'd spaced out and lost his place, without the least bit of outside help. He knew the logic of the algorithm front to back, up and down (and strange and charming), but all the specific numbers blurred together by the time he'd spent days crunching them with too little sleep separating shifts of work.

It occasionally occurred to him that this was what computers were for, but Williamson had never, ever offered him one to speed up the process, and he suspected it was better that way. He had long since decided that taking more time was an axiomatic good, and this would have taken a fuck of a lot less time with a computer. Anyway, he didn't think asking Williamson for one would end well, though sometimes Williamson just laughed at things like that.

He started the algorithm over from the beginning with his latest variable set, plugging in values and making periodic notations on the board in front of him, incoherent outside the particular context of the expression unfolding in his brain at the given moment. It all worked, one piece into another into another, click click slide thump. For a moment he honestly thought he was just hearing the sound of his own thoughts, and then he realized someone had unbarred the door.

He stopped calculating, got his left hand out of his sweater and pressed it--damp with sweat, it would leave a clear handprint--flat to the board, ignoring the sharp flare of pain in his elbow at the quick motion. They liked his hands where they could see them. He kept scribbling furiously, trying to get all the figures down before the door opened. If he had them down, he could pick up where he'd left off later, and he wouldn't lose so much time. Even if they took him upstairs, he could return to the calculation when he got back, right in the middle like they'd never opened the door at all, and that would help.

His left hand twitched with cold and his elbow throbbed, and his writing turned erratic--more erratic than usual--as the lock scraped back. He was out of breath, sweating buckets, wet fingers melting the chalk in his hand, and the door opened and still nobody was yelling at him, stomping inside to drag him out. He scratched out the last of the figures and froze, allowing himself one more moment facing the board, fixing the calculation in his mind, and then, shivering, he turned to look.

There was a stranger standing in the doorway, holding a bag and bedroll under his left arm, his flannel jacket open so that the gun holstered under his arm was visible, a dark gleam of leather and metal. He was wearing a stocking cap and though his mouth was a small flat line, there was a kind of smile at the corners of his dark brown eyes. The stranger was looking at him intently--almost hungrily--more than any of the others ever had, and the pit of his stomach shook. The others always looked bored when they saw him, interested only after he became an object for their amusement. They wanted his indignity, sometimes his pain; Williamson only ever wanted information. This one wanted him, and he desperately hoped he was wrong about what exactly that might mean.

Williamson was there, just behind the stranger, who was shorter though by no means small or slight. Williamson smiled over the stranger's shoulder, and he felt a stupid, treacherous relief to have Williamson back in the building, even with the stranger there.

"Brought you your very own guard," Williamson said, and then there was a dull smacking sound and the stranger--guard, new guard--oh God, they were going to leave someone in here with him all the time, Williamson being here would be no better at all--stepped quickly inside, nearly jumping across the threshold toward him.

He turned his back on the stranger as the lock and the bar slammed shut outside, though his skin was crawling in anticipation. He could feel himself edging toward total panic, and the only thing that helped that was to do his work. The wet, weakened chalk snapped in his grip, and he stood facing the chalkboard helplessly, shivering, trying to breathe, as his sweat turned cold and the stranger behind him didn't make a sound.

It was a terrible kind of déjà vu: he felt like he'd had his guts shot out. Like Charlie had shot him again, both barrels straight into his stomach, two dark eyes full of terror as brutal as shotgun shells. If he moved he would bleed out. If he moved he would make a sound, and he didn't like to think what it would be, what wounded cry would come out of his mouth on a bubble of blood. If he moved this would be real, and it had to be just another bad dream.

It couldn't be that Charlie didn't know him. It couldn't be that Charlie, here in this room so like his own garage, surrounded by chalkboards covered in math, was so damaged that he didn't know Don, that he was scared of Don. After a hundred and thirty days of silence, a hundred and thirty days of keeping his head down, a hundred and thirty days of waiting, searching--after he'd walked away from his whole life, killed a man to get here--it couldn't all come to this. To nothing. To Charlie not being Charlie, not knowing who either of them were.

This was supposed to be the end, or practically the end, of all of it. All they needed now was for Charlie to give him the sitrep, Don to lay out the precise tactics. A little shooting, a little running; maybe one of them would get hurt, maybe he'd have to kill Williamson, but then they'd be out of here. Home free. Dinner in Chicago, breakfast in LA.

Don stood very still just inside the door, forcing himself to breathe slowly and silently through his nose, teeth clenched. He closed his eyes and tried to talk himself down--Just imagine the part of you that can get the job done is a hostage, Terry had told him once, and your emotions are a crazy person who's got the rest of you at gunpoint. Talk them down. He'd squinted and said, Are you encouraging dissociative tendencies? and she'd said, I'm not a psychiatrist, Don. No code of ethics. I just want you to do the job. He'd smiled and said, Remind me never to get on your bad side, and she'd smiled back, and now the thought of her smiling made his throat close up with panic, his heart racing harder and his mouth tasting bitter with adrenaline overdose.

He had to breathe. He had to open his eyes. He had to look at the situation in front of him: the real one, not the one he'd wanted. Whatever he'd landed in chasing Charlie, he was in it now up to his neck. He had to know what. He had to breathe. He had to open his eyes.

After another couple of minutes he did it, focusing his gaze on Charlie, and it should have been funny, he's as scared of you as you are of him. But it was terrible, it was more wrong than anything Don had ever seen. He had to look at it in parts, break it into its components, or it was too much to deal with.

Charlie was shaking visibly. Don could hear his breathing, too, shallow and rapid: two quick pants for every carefully slow breath Don took. There was a wet handprint drying on the chalkboard from where Charlie's hand had been pressed when the door opened, and the back of Charlie's sweater was dark with moisture. Hyperventilation, even trembling, could maybe be faked, but Don didn't think Charlie was a good enough actor to sweat on command. He didn't think anyone was.

Charlie was scared. Charlie was really scared. And the only thing in this room with Charlie was Don, so Charlie was scared of Don, more scared than Don had ever seen him. This was worse than monsters under the bed, worse than his thesis defense, worse than sniper fire. And Charlie would only be scared of Don if he didn't know who Don was.

So there was something wrong with Charlie, some kind of brain damage, or psychological trauma, and it wasn't like he hadn't had plenty of opportunities for both in the one hundred thirty days it had taken Don to get here. Words clawed up Don's throat, filling his mouth, pressing against his gritted teeth, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but he couldn't say that. Not to this stranger who looked at him out of Charlie's eyes. Not now.

But the stranger still had Charlie's brain, Charlie's math; Don could see that scrawled across three walls. He still had to be Charlie in some way--this couldn't be permanent, couldn't be really, absolutely, permanently real. It had to be a coping mechanism, Charlie's own dissociative hostage situation. Terry would be proud.

So Charlie had forgotten Don, but he'd held on to math, which made sense. Math was useful. Math was clearly why Williamson kept Charlie around. Don hadn't been any demonstrable use to Charlie since he'd been taken.

But Charlie had had more to lose than Don, and Williamson hadn't called a name, any name, to get Charlie's attention. Names were less useful than math, if probably more useful than Don. Charlie might not have kept his name. Probably hadn't. Don swallowed the Charlie? that lingered on his tongue and forced himself to look away from his brother.

He tugged off his hat and rubbed a hand through his sweat-damp hair, letting his heart rate settle and wondering what the hell to do next. Every procedure he'd ever learned had been some variation of call for backup, and he'd very neatly left himself without any. Unavoidable, or at least he'd thought it was--let himself think it was. The blank postcard he'd sent to Coop before leaving Chicago seemed less like a sensible precaution now, and more like a message in a bottle.

Maybe he should just assume they were going to die, and count every minute he didn't get both of them killed as a victory. Maybe he should take the Sig out right now and call it quits for both of them. He'd dreamed so many times of finding Charlie's body, of being able to stop because it was all over, the searching definitively ended along with Charlie's life. He could make it real now: one little crook of his trigger finger and Charlie would be lying there in front of him for real this time. It'd only take another few seconds to bring the thing to its logical conclusion--the same gun at his own temple, the same crook of his finger, one for him and one for Charlie, exactly equal and fair and Charlie even got to go first.

But no, that was the adrenaline talking, making colors too stark and lights too bright and desperate situations hopeless. So it wasn't going to be a cakewalk: so he'd have to start from scratch, earning Charlie's trust, learning the terrain. It didn't matter. He'd come here to do a job, and he'd do it or die trying.

He looked back up at Charlie just in time to see him rub his face against the arm of his sweater. Don stayed very still as Charlie started to move, and Charlie raised a stub of chalk to the board and began, slowly and shakily, to write. Don let himself breathe out as the chalk tapped faster. Charlie had math, and Charlie could always calm himself down with math. Charlie was still Charlie, still Don's brother, even if he didn't know it. Don would know it for both of them.

Don passed a hand over his own face and carefully, silently, set down his bag and bedroll beside the door, keeping his eyes on Charlie. Charlie kept working, and Don locked down the urge to go to him, touch him, reassure him, reassure himself. This was close enough to see: Charlie was alive, really alive, and right there across the room.

One hundred thirty days, and you couldn't call this day's work nothing, not really. He'd found Charlie. He could do the rest. Hell, if he could just get Charlie to trust him, Charlie would probably be able to figure out how to get them both out. This just set the timetable back a little.

Don looked around the room carefully, trying to analyze it tactically, though it was a pretty grim picture: no exits, no cover. They had about half the basement, so three walls were solid cinder block, with blackboards bolted to them all the way around. He suspected they covered any windows that might have been present, but couldn't remember any sign of basement windows visible in his brief glimpse of the house's exterior. The fourth wall was drywall, painted primer-white. That wall appeared to be flush to floor and ceiling, solidly constructed.

There was a wood and canvas folding cot set up against the interior wall with an unzipped sleeping bag crumpled on it, and beyond the cot there was another doorway. Don walked far enough to see that it was a tiny cubicle of a bathroom, just a toilet and sink, and that there was no door in the frame. He could see the holes where the hinges had been taken out.

There were two card tables pushed together in the center of the room, with papers stacked untidily on top. The floor was bare, smooth cement, the ceiling unfinished. Ducts and wiring ran between the joists that supported the floor of the house. Light came from a couple of bare bulbs in plain fixtures, operated by a switch near the door. There was a work light hooked to the corner of the blackboard where Charlie was standing, connected to the orange extension cord that was plugged in outside, but it was turned off.

Don stole another glance at Charlie. Looking at him was easier every time, familiarity dulling the jolt of panic and desperation in his belly. Charlie was wearing a faded black sweater--much too big and unraveling in a couple of spots--baggy jeans, and white socks, but no shoes. His hair had grown into a short curly cap, dense as wool, and his face was pale, shadowed with a few days' stubble. His shoulders looked sharp, like he'd lost weight, and he'd pulled his left arm inside his sweater, but at least he'd stopped shivering. He held his chalk in a weird-looking crabbed grip, and his writing was different from how it had been before, the corners of his fours and sevens more jagged than the ones Don had stared at on and off for three months in the garage. He was writing fast, lost in his work and giving no sign that he even remembered there was anyone in the room with him.

Don leaned against the wall and fished the walkie-talkie out of his pocket, looking it over carefully. There weren't any obvious signs of tampering; it probably wasn't bugged, though he couldn't be certain without disassembling it and he didn't have the tools for that. It would be ridiculously easy for Williamson, or anyone else in the house, to be listening in by less exotic means, though there was always the possibility that they just weren't bothering: Williamson was in control of the situation, and knew it. There wasn't a hell of a lot Don could do from down here, locked in with eight heavily armed men--or a dozen, or a platoon, for all he knew--in the house above him. Don shoved the radio into a pocket and shrugged his coat off, tossing it down on top of his bag. It'd make his gun that much more prominent, but maybe Charlie would get used to that. Though the room was cool, it wasn't cold enough to warrant the coat.

He started a slow tour of the room, staying well away from Charlie but having a good look at everything else. There didn't seem to be any cameras tucked into the ceiling wiring or obvious bugs on the light fixtures. The papers on the tables were mostly sheets of numbers he couldn't decipher, sorted into sloppy piles that were doubtless intensely meaningful to Charlie. There was also a large box of white chalk, and a smaller box with assorted colors. Don looked around for erasers, but there weren't any, just a rag hanging over the top corner of one of the boards. There was nothing else in the room, not so much as a chair.

By the time Don had checked over the whole room, the adrenaline tide was washing out, leaving his hands and knees shaky. But if he sat down, he might not get up, so he kept pacing, six slow strides from one wall to another, steady as a clock.

He'd gotten good at dividing his attention, as long as none of the things he was paying attention to were excessively urgent. Little by little he managed to steal attention from listening for the stranger's booted steps approaching to devote to resuming his calculations.

He kept going without pause at the soft thuds that were 97% certainly the sounds of the stranger setting down his bag and bedroll, and managed not to flinch visibly when he heard the first soft scuffing steps that meant the stranger had moved away from the door. He tucked his left hand under his right arm again, because it was getting cold and the blow still wasn't falling. Clearly the stranger was the kind who liked to let anticipation build, and he knew that anticipating the blow only made it hurt worse. He devoted increasing proportions of his attention to his work as the steps behind him stayed soft and slow and never came closer than a couple of meters. There was a brief rustling of the papers on the table, and then the sound of the stranger pacing at the other end of the room, across blackboards one and two.

The steps settled into a steady, reliable rhythm, pausing for short, regular intervals before proceeding again. They never came closer, and were neither so silent that the stranger's movement could not be tracked, nor so loud as to be deliberately intimidating.

He paused between calculations for a moment, scratching out a tidy little expression to describe the stranger's movement behind him. If his own fixed position was used as the focus of a circle, the stranger's motion was a tangent line...

The footsteps deviated abruptly from their established path, moving not nearer to him, as he'd been expecting, but further away. He kept writing as he listened, until he was startled into total stillness by a different sound entirely, a cloth rustle and metallic zipper rasp and--and then a distinctly liquid sound. He turned, keeping his feet planted in the same spot, and peered toward the bathroom doorway. He couldn't see anything, and felt himself drawn toward the sound as it continued, leaning further and further and finally going on tiptoe to lean further yet, until he finally caught a glimpse of the stranger's back. His shoulder was wrapped in the leather of the holster he wore, and his blue jeans were tight, though the seat sagged a little in the way that indicated they were unzipped, as, of course, they had to be, because the stranger was--

The liquid sound stopped, and he turned away abruptly, settling back on his feet with his face to his blackboard, raising his hand to the board and wiping away the expression for the stranger's movement. He'd been naked in front of Williamson and a succession of others; he'd had to piss with armed men watching every move he made. The reverse was distinctly weird, and wildly unexpected. None of the others had ever stooped to giving up their privacy in his presence, however uniformly the reverse had been true. And the stranger had made no attempt to make the act a threat, made no real reference to him at all. It was an anomaly beyond his ability to describe.

He heard the sound of the sink running and then shutting off, and then a wordless annoyed sound from the stranger. He couldn't resist turning around again, to see the stranger standing in the doorway, wiping his hands on his now-zipped jeans. The stranger had taken his hat off, and his dark hair was standing out at angles.

He stood a moment, staring, idly calculating those angles, and then the stranger raised his eyebrows and he realized what he was doing and turned away quickly. Before he could resume his work, the stranger said softly, "Hey, I don't think we've really been formally introduced."

Wasn't that the punch line to some joke? That was not a formal introduction. He turned his head just far enough to see the stranger leaning in the bathroom doorway, his hands open at his sides and his hair still a wild, largely vertical mess. He wondered if there was some way to quantify the way wiping your hands on your pants made you look less threatening, and whether the stranger was aware of it.

He looked back to his blackboard, studying his notations, and said, "Williamson calls me Know-Nothing or Know-It-All, interchangeably. Like flammable and inflammable."

"Yeah?" the stranger said, as though this were an interesting bit of trivia. "Williamson calls me Mac."

He nodded. Mac. That was the kind of name Williamson's men tended to have. Skip, Randy, Hank, Sam, Jimmy. Mac.

"You like being called that?" Williamson-calls-me-Mac said, and it was such an odd question that he had to turn and look. He couldn't remember ever being asked whether he liked something by a person who sounded as if they'd take his answer as anything other than a clue to how hard to hit him.

Mac was watching him curiously, and he shrugged and looked away again. "It's not actually my name, if that's what you mean."

Mac snorted. "Yeah, I didn't think it was. So if we're going to be stuck in this room together all the time, what do you want me to call you while I'm here?"

It was an interestingly bounded question: it placed the two of them inside a matrix from which Williamson first and foremost, but also everyone else, was excluded. And yet it only reflected a reality that Williamson himself had established--newly, for the first time; he'd never had a guard of his own before, for all that he was sometimes locked in with one or another of Williamson's men. But Mac was to stay here, for some duration, inside the room with him at Williamson's order--and Mac had asked him a question.

It wasn't as if he hadn't given some thought, from time to time, to what he'd like to be called if he could choose. He'd considered the possibility that it was important to have a name for himself, even if no one else knew it, but he'd found that no name he chose lasted long without an external point of reference. It was a peculiar, artificial exercise, trying to apply some textual string as a label to himself. He'd considered the major constants--pi, e, i--and there would be some amusement in naming himself imaginary, but he was real enough, and not entirely constant. He smiled then and made an impulsive choice, reached over to a blank space and scrawled c on the board.

When he glanced back over his shoulder, Mac had folded his arms, and was leaning his head against the doorframe, eyes half shut. c wondered how much time had passed since Mac had asked; he wasn't any good at gauging. Mac picked his head up when c looked at him, and squinted at the board.

"C..." Mac said, clearly waiting for another letter.

"c," he corrected. "Lowercase, italicized. It's a physical constant, the--"

"Speed of light," Mac interrupted, nodding. "Like E=mc²."

c stared at him, and Mac smiled suddenly, bright and startling, his eyes so warm and pleased that c could only nod mutely.

"I passed physics in school," Mac said with a dismissive shrug. "I know some things."

c looked away from Mac's gaze. "You may be aware that it's not entirely constant, then. It's different in different environments."

He bracketed the c he'd written, idly, but it was an incomplete matrix. There was a space unfilled.

"What about you?" he asked abruptly, turning back to look at Williamson-calls-me-Mac again.

Mac raised his eyebrows. "I just said, I--"

c shook his head, "No, no, you, while you're here. I told you what you should call me in this room, but you didn't tell me what I should call you."

"Oh," Mac said.

He went very still, holding c's gaze, and his face was as blank as someone trying to hide something, which was odd in itself: no one bothered to hide anything from Know-Nothing. c watched him, waiting, wondering how this question could possibly be difficult for someone who knew his own name.

"How about you call me Don," he said finally. "In this room."

c nodded. "Okay. Don."

There. The matrix was complete. Know-It-All = c and Mac = Don, just as he reported all his calculations to Williamson in English units even though he did them in metric. He turned back to his blackboard, satisfied, and glanced over the last notations he'd made, taking a moment to pick up the calculation where he'd left off. He was nearly finished before he heard Don start to pace again.

He managed to work through his calculations, with Don pacing somewhere behind him, and finally turned to record it on a sheet, pulling the single mechanical pencil he was permitted from his pocket. Don stopped pacing and watched as he scribbled, taking a step closer to the opposite end of the tables. "What are you doing, anyway?"

c looked up at him, tilting his head. Don seemed honestly curious, so much so that c was almost tempted to try to explain it to him.

"Did you study much math, in school?"

Don shrugged and looked away, glancing sideways at c as he spoke. "My brother used to do my homework, actually, until our mom caught us and made him stop. Math wasn't much fun after that."

"Ah," c said. Don wasn't altogether different from the others, then; he was still one of those who viewed math as a dry, useless discipline, for all c accomplished with it daily. "Well, even if you'd done your own homework, you wouldn't understand what I'm doing here."

Don looked oddly wounded at that, and c winced. Stupid to offend the man. "I mean, it's really boring, anyway," c added. "And Williamson doesn't like me to talk about it with anyone else."

Don nodded, and then abruptly turned his back on c, standing with his face toward blackboard three as though it fascinated him, running a hand through his already-disarranged hair. c tried to mimic the gesture, but his fingers caught in the tangles--when had his hair gotten so long?--and he had to tug it back out. He turned back to the board and started to erase his last calculation with the side of his hand, and then flinched when something struck the floor beside his feet. c glanced over his shoulder, but Don was staring fixedly in another direction. When c bent down to pick the thing up off the floor, he realized it was the rag he'd left hanging on one of the other boards. c smiled, baffled, and used the rag to clean his board, tucking the end of it into his pocket when he was done.

He'd gotten halfway through his next calculation set when he heard the door being unbarred, and his heart started to race again, his breath coming short and sweat breaking out--what now, what now? He worked faster, pressing his left hand flat to the board, and then in his peripheral vision a shape moved--Don, stepping between him and the door. c felt his lips twist into a grim smile, even as his pulse raced. Someone should probably explain to Don that there wasn't much danger of him making a run for it.

The door opened just enough to admit a hand holding a crumpled paper sack, and someone outside said, "Lunch."

Don took the bag, and the hand withdrew and the door was barred again. c returned his focus to the board, trying to get back into the rhythm of his work, let the numbers fight off the shakes.

"Hey, c," Don said, behind him. "Lunch."

c nodded, but didn't look back. "I just have to finish this," he said, hating the unsteadiness of his voice.

If Don wanted him to stop working and eat now, he could easily force the issue, but if he'd let c work, the queasy terror would pass on its own. He kept working frantically, and didn't register that Don had left him entirely alone until he turned around to record his next set of results and found a peanut butter sandwich, a pear, and a condensation-covered can of Coke sitting on a tiny cleared space on the table nearest to him.

Don sat with his back to the wall, his lunch a solid knot in his stomach, watching Charlie work.

It had been a stupid thing to do, telling Charlie his name: possibly the single stupidest thing he'd done since he'd hared off on his own, and quite likely stupid enough to get them killed all by itself. Even if they didn't know what Charlie's brother looked like, they were bound to know his name; Charlie must have said it at least once, if nothing else. Don wished he could tell himself he had no idea why he'd done it, that his brain had shut off and he'd heard himself speak. But that hadn't been it, though the moment had felt a little bit like his brain shutting off, and a lot like free fall--everything happening too fast, nothing to catch, nothing to hold on to. That moment when you jumped, so you couldn't even console yourself, in the instant before the ground rushed up and crushed you, that it hadn't been your fault.

But this instant stretched sickeningly on and on, because so far he and Charlie were alone. The consequences of that one stupid, stupid word wouldn't come in a few mercifully quick seconds. They were just waiting for him down the line somewhere, when Charlie slipped and said it to Williamson, when somebody bothered to listen in on them down here. It could get him killed. It could get them both killed.

And the worst part was, he'd said it because he wanted Charlie to recognize it, recognize him. When he'd had to look away after Charlie failed to, it hadn't been because he was worried about both of them dying. It was because he'd been disappointed.

He banged his head gently against the wall, too softly to make a sound or threaten his remaining brain cells. To think he'd flattered himself, weeks back, that he understood how little perspective he had on this thing. He'd come here to save Charlie, and he'd throw both their lives away right now if Charlie would just look at him and know who he was.

So here he was, alone with Charlie, operative word alone. No safety net, no backup, no partner. No one even knew for sure what he was doing, never mind where. He was falling and falling and falling, and Charlie, over there doing math in his stocking feet, was looking like a pretty flimsy parachute.

Don shook his head, trying to rattle his brain into better order. He only succeeded in making his head hurt, so he got up and paced again, criss-crossing the room, eyeing the lines of sight from the door. He wished he could knock for hollow spots behind the chalkboards, but even Charlie, changed as he was, would probably recognize what he was doing. If Charlie realized Don was thinking about escape routes, Williamson would know about it soon enough. Williamson wouldn't have any reason to treat his unnamed genius more gently than he did Don, and Charlie obviously possessed a hell of a survival instinct to have made it this far. If Williamson asked him anything, Charlie would tell what he knew. So Don couldn't say a word or take a single false step, which was going to be hard, locked in with him like this all day. It wasn't just Charlie he couldn't reach out and touch: it was everything.

Don stuffed his hands into his pockets and stalked back and forth across the concrete until he could cross the distance with his eyes closed and judge it perfectly. His stride lengthened and quickened with every turn. Don was nearly running when he noticed that Charlie had stopped writing, and was casting him quick glances, making little jerky motions of his head. Don was distracting Charlie, maybe scaring him again. Don forced himself to be still--and for a minute he couldn't make his body obey, momentum driving him onward. For the length of those few quick heartbeats he was scaring himself, out of control. Then his brain reasserted itself, and he was dropping down to sit by the wall again, concrete cool through his jeans, unyielding under his fingertips. He barely breathed until Charlie was safely back to work, chalk taps speeding along in a staccato like Don's heartbeat.

Sitting there watching Charlie work, not being able to interrupt him, reminded Don of nothing so much as the months before their mom died. She'd asked him, sometimes, to check on Charlie. "But don't bother him, Donnie, just see how he's doing. Is he eating?" So he'd gone out to the garage and stood in the doorway, watching while Charlie worked and worked and worked, leaving sandwiches and cookies and Cokes where Charlie would find them if he ever took a break, restraining the ever-present urge to yell, to grab Charlie and shake him, to drag him inside by his ear.

And then he'd gone back and held his mother's hand and told her Charlie was all right, just busy with some important problem. Don never raised his voice, never let her see him upset. She'd never asked why Charlie's math problem was more important than she was. She'd never asked Don why his knuckles were always bruised, either. For a while he'd patched the plaster in his apartment every weekend, but for the last month he'd let it go. By the time he got around to it, after the funeral, the place looked like the set of one of those action movies they were perpetually shooting downtown.

It hadn't been that he was angry at Charlie, really. After the first few weeks, he'd realized there was no more use being angry at Charlie than at God, or doctors, or cancer, or his mother for being mortal, or his father for not being able to fix it somehow. Don had just needed to hit things.

He wanted badly to hit something now, and couldn't. He'd scare Charlie. He'd give himself away. He'd mess up his hand, get them both killed when their chance came because he was too slow to his gun. He just had to sit, quiet as if he were at his mother's bedside again, and wait for whatever was going to happen next. Another deathwatch.

After twenty minutes, when Charlie was safely back into his math again, Don got up and paced some more, eyeing the chalkboards, wondering if he could do pull-ups. If he broke one "accidentally," Charlie might not suspect anything--but then, if he broke one with a window behind it, Charlie wouldn't have to suspect anything. Don would be shoving him up and out the window, and then... what? Running to the nearest house, maybe empty, maybe full of innocent bystanders? Williamson was tidy, organized, probably not the type to mow down an entire family--unless he was pushed, unless it was the efficient thing to do. It might be, if the alternative was letting Charlie get away, letting Don take him.

Don's fists clenched and he forced himself to look down from the chalkboards that might or might not conceal windows, staring at the floor. He had to keep his steps even and light and quiet, or he'd scare Charlie again, and soon enough he sat down. After that, he found himself dreading the idea of pacing; it was harder to control himself when he was in motion than when he was still. He sat, instead, watching Charlie, evolving increasingly improbable scenarios for their escape: setting a fire, improvising a small explosion from his spare ammunition, somehow persuading Charlie to fake an illness. He spent more time than he wanted to add up entranced by the idea that he could simplify matters by having Charlie not fake an illness: he could force Charlie to eat chalk, like that time he'd dared him to when they were kids. He could shoot him, force Williamson to get him medical care--

He could see it, too easily. Pulling his gun--he could do it just like this, while Charlie was facing the board, so he wouldn't see it coming, wouldn't have time to be scared. Not until afterward, anyway, while Don was trying to stabilize him on the basement floor and Charlie was staring up at him with those dark, terrified eyes--not surprised, because Charlie expected Don to hurt him--but hurt, and scared that Don would hurt him more. And then Williamson would come down and shoot Don in the head for damaging the genius, and he'd never know whether Williamson got medical care for Charlie or let him bleed out right there, or maybe die slower, with an untreated infection...

No. Not an option. Too much risk, too little likelihood of accomplishing anything, too much shooting his baby brother.

Don glanced at his watch when he heard the sound of the door being unbarred, and was startled to find it was evening. The constant fluorescent light was disorienting. Don crossed the space quickly, squeezing his arm against the reassuring solidity of his gun as he moved himself between Charlie and the door. He could feel his own heart rate kicking up, and he could hear Charlie starting to freak out again in the suddenly increasing tempo of chalk-taps.

The door opened wide this time, and it was Williamson, with a Beretta on his hip and a plate of food--meat and potatoes and peas, weirdly normal--in his hand. He looked right past Don to Charlie, and when Don turned to look he saw Charlie almost smiling: looking not happy exactly, but relieved, instantly un-panicked, wiping his hands on his rag and stepping away from the blackboard.

Don knew what Williamson had probably done and ordered done to Charlie in the last three months, but it was that half-smile on Charlie's face that made Don want to kill the man, suddenly, viscerally, an eager twitch in the muscles of his arms and hands. He wouldn't even need his gun.

"You're out," Williamson said, glancing at Don and jerking his chin toward the door. "Go eat, take a shower if you want. You have about an hour and you don't get out again until this time tomorrow."

Don stood perfectly still for a second, forcing down the impulse to refuse, to pull his gun, to try to pull Charlie out right then and there, with Williamson and an unknown number of armed thugs between him and the front door. When Williamson started to raise an eyebrow Don burst into motion, grabbing his duffle from where he'd dropped it by the door and letting himself out. Sam, or possibly Jimmy, was standing near the bottom of the stairs--Don wouldn't have made it even to the door, if he'd taken Williamson down--and said, "Bar it behind you." Don nodded, blank-faced as he could manage, and turned and locked and barred the door, sealing Charlie in with his captor. Locking himself out.

He followed Williamson's thug up the stairs, watching his own feet all the way. There were four other guys in the kitchen, dishing up food and eating wherever there was room, and Don dropped his bag and joined the crowd. He wasn't hungry--not with Williamson under his feet, alone with Charlie--but it'd look weird not to eat, and anyway, Charlie was probably safe enough for now. He wouldn't have looked relieved if Williamson was inclined to include torture on the dinner menu. Probably. Unless Don's presence had changed the routine, like old Heisenberg said.

Don ate standing up at the counter, trying to watch the others without looking like he was watching, keeping his mouth shut and his ears open. It didn't matter: they weren't talking, weren't giving him anything he could use. All he could tell was that they were all bigger than he was, all armed. Two of them were talking idly about the Packers, giving Don a little intel on Brett Favre, none on them except that they didn't seem to care very much about the Packers.

They dispersed as they finished eating--rinsing their dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher like well-trained kids, and it was fucking eerie--mathematical precision, again, and this was obviously Williamson's, not Charlie's.

Not mathematical at all, Don thought, staring at the bottom of his bowl, a little lightning-struck with the obviousness of it: military. Ex-military, maybe Special Forces? Christ, didn't they do psych screens at all? But whatever Williamson was, he had expertise not unlike Don's, and if Don could see it on him, there were excellent odds that sooner or later he'd spot it on Don. If he hadn't already. If--

The skin was crawling on the back of Don's neck, and he was nearly alone in the kitchen, just one guy sitting at the table now, going nowhere. Don put away his own dishes, grabbed his bag, and headed off in search of a bathroom.

Through the other doorway was a living room with a threadbare couch and a cheap TV. Two of the guys were sitting there, one flipping through channels while the other stared, unblinking, at the screen. Don glanced toward the small foyer, the heavy front door, locked and deadbolted. He didn't let his gaze linger on it any more than he let it linger on the guns they were both wearing --one was a Desert Eagle .45, the other a semi-automatic he couldn't identify at a glance, maybe a Russian make.

Off the living room was a short hallway with a bedroom on either side--Don caught a glimpse of cots and sleeping bags through an open door--and a bathroom further down, on the right, toward the back of the house. The door at the end of the hall was firmly closed, and the doorknob had a key lock. Don didn't need to check it to know it would be locked.

Don went into the bathroom and locked the door behind him, dropped his bag in front of the door and turned on the shower, and then stood still in the small room, alone for the first time in twelve hours. He covered his face with his hands and let himself shake. He wanted to kill somebody, right that minute, and he wanted to run back down to the basement and refuse to leave Charlie's side, and a little part of him just wanted to call for help, fall on his knees and beg to be bailed out of this mess. If he could get hold of local law enforcement... but the odds of getting Charlie killed in the crossfire were too high, to say nothing of whatever poor bastard from the Wisconsin State Police came out here to answer the call. To say nothing of himself.

He wanted--God, he wanted to be at home again, going to his dad like a little kid with a bad dream. He wanted someone else to fix this. But all his dad had said was, "I can't lose you both," and Don had thought he knew better.

I'm sorry, he thought, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not the genius, I'm sorry, I let you down, I'm sorry, nobody's coming home, Dad, I'm sorry.

But his dad had said, "I forgive you," too, and he'd said, "Find your brother." Don had done that much at least: even if no one else ever knew it, even if Charlie himself didn't know it, Charlie wasn't really lost anymore. Even if they both died here, at least Don had found him first.

Don straightened up, taking a breath, getting hold of himself as the room warmed up, filling with steam. He hadn't had a choice, really: there hadn't been a choice to make. Charlie was his brother, and he'd had an idea that he knew how to find Charlie; he'd had to do what he could with it. He couldn't have lived with himself if he hadn't, and he knew, after ten years, just how much that wasn't a figure of speech for an FBI agent. Guys like that found a way to stop living, sooner or later, and they usually made a hell of a mess for everyone around them.

So there: he'd done that much good. Whatever happened to him and Charlie here, it wouldn't get Terry or David killed--probably wouldn't even destroy their careers. Terry was smart. If she had to give him up, she'd give him up. She'd told him once she'd never lie for her partner. Of course, it had been a long time ago; maybe she'd changed her mind since then, maybe his secret was safe. Maybe she hadn't, and the FBI was working on hunting him down right now.

Don smiled--it was a win-win, wasn't it? A loyal partner, or the cavalry coming? He could feel the unbalanced edge to the smile and his thoughts, but it was closer to control than he'd been all day, so he'd take what he could get. He forced his breathing into an even rhythm and started getting undressed, unlacing his boots and hanging his holster on the back of the door. Don showered and shaved quickly, and got dressed again in the sticky-wet heat of the tiny room. He dried his feet carefully before he pulled his socks on, knowing he'd have his feet in his boots for the next twenty-four hours. That had been one of the weirder things he had to get used to after he left fugitive recovery, taking his boots off to go to sleep. It had been weeks after he transferred before he could sleep without being ready to bolt out the door at a second's notice. If he made it out of here alive, he might be sleeping in his boots for good.

Don headed straight back down to the basement, but his watch showed he'd only burned half of his hour. It wouldn't look right to be eager to go back in. Don glanced up the stairs, thinking longingly of the front door, open air--but it wouldn't look much better to be eager to get out.

He put his ear to the barred door, but couldn't hear anything but a low murmur of voices. He strained to catch some note of fear in Charlie's voice, but instead he picked up the familiar tone of Charlie in lecture mode. His guts twisted and his breath caught. It shouldn't have been possible to miss Charlie so much from so close, but his little brother hadn't spoken to him like that in a long time, and might never again.

Don looked around and then headed over to the other side of the basement, checking the solidity of the interior wall, the layout. Everything looked normal and depressingly well-constructed, offering no obvious opportunities for escape or concealment. There were boxes stacked up against the walls of the bathroom, and Don walked over to look at them. He put his ear to the wall again, glanced at his watch. He had twenty-five minutes to go, and everything was quiet in Charlie's room. There was a layer of dust on the boxes--more than three months' accumulation if he had to guess. Don glanced toward the door to Charlie's room, listened for movement upstairs, and then lifted the top off the nearest box.

There was a school kid's art project on top; it shed glitter on Don's fingers when he picked it up. There were papers and folders underneath, and Don wondered who'd lived in this house, who'd planted the flowers out front, and what the hell had happened to them, why they'd left these things behind, whether they were all right. He couldn't think about it, though; they were gone. Charlie was here. Don replaced the lid and moved the box, going to the second, which was more of the same, papers and report cards. He closed it up and set it aside, and opened a third.

Pay dirt. The entire box was stacked full of glossy comic books. Don grinned suddenly, almost laughed before he choked back the sound. The year he was eleven he'd broken his arm in April, losing himself an entire season of Little League. His dad had brought him comic books the first day, and after he got hooked he'd walked ten blocks to the comic shop every week--he wasn't allowed to ride his bike until he got the cast off--and bought up all the comics he could scrape together the change to afford. It was the only way he'd kept from going nuts until June, when the cast came off and he could at least play sandlot ball again.

Don flipped through the comics quickly; he didn't care about the contents, but he was curious about the dates. None was less than a year old. He hoped that meant that whoever they belonged to had been long gone before Williamson started using this place as his HQ. Don opened up his duffle and slipped in as many comics as he could fit. They weren't weapons, but he had more guns than he had uses for them, right now. He was perilously short on ways to pass time without driving himself insane, and clearly he was going to have to be patient. Comic books would help.

Don put the lid on the box again and stacked the other boxes on top of it just as they'd been, wiping the top one clean to make the finger marks less obvious before he went back to stand by the door. There was still no sound from inside, and he was straining so hard to hear that the squawk of his walkie-talkie from his pocket startled him. "Mac," Williamson said, and he could hear a faint echo of the man's actual voice inside. "Come on down. You're back on."

"Gotcha," Don said into his radio, even as he unbarred the door.

Williamson looked amused. The plate in his hand was empty, and Charlie was already back to work, looking completely unperturbed. "You're punctual," Williamson said, and Don forced himself to focus on the boss.

He shrugged, a little tensely, but Mac would be tense. It was all right so far. Williamson didn't seem to know.

"I do my job," he said, and Williamson just smiled and walked out. Don didn't move until he heard the door barred and locked, and then he sat down on the floor, watching Charlie with his hand on his bag. He'd wait until he really needed a comic book, and then he'd take it out.

c looked up at some point and discovered that Don had set out his bedroll and lain down. He was stretched out across the door, with his feet toward the wall and his head toward c. He had his back toward the door, and his holster was folded neatly on the floor near his head, empty. c set down his chalk and moved closer, looking for the gun, and then spotted it tucked between Don's shoulder and his throat, half-hidden by the pillow he rested his head on.

Don seemed to be asleep. c hadn't noticed him lying down, and he wondered how much time had passed. He had some idea that it made a difference; the longer someone had been asleep, the more deeply they slept. He'd never seen anyone sleep before. He supposed he'd known that they did, just the way he knew that other people pissed, or took their clothes off, or felt pain. But as far as he could remember, all those interactions had always gone one way for him.

Until now, until Don. He might have to have a guard with him all the time, but it meant that the guard had c with him all the time, even when he wasn't... on guard. c took a step closer to him, and then another, quicker. The hungry way Don looked at him scared him, but Don had talked to him, too, had asked his name like he expected c to have one, and now he thought maybe he did. None of the others had ever expected him to have a name. None of the others had ever sat quietly while he worked, trying not to distract him (though Don's very presence could be intensely distracting). c was forced to consider the possibility that Don was qualitatively different from every other person he'd ever met.

Different, and still sleeping. He wasn't really scary at all like this, not looking at c, not moving, though fear shivered down c's spine, as inescapable as the chill radiating from the walls. Another step and c was towering above him, looking down at him the way other people usually looked down at c on the floor, or bound to a chair. For a wild thoughtless instant c wanted to kick Don as hard as he could, just to see what it felt like to be on that side of the equation, but just visualizing it made fear run cold and sharp through his veins. Every action had an equal and opposite reaction, and Don's reaction to being kicked would only begin with striking back; Don would wake with that gun at his hand and c at his mercy. If c kicked him, he might find Don wasn't different from the others at all.

c crouched down instead, trying for another perspective. He leaned close to look at Don's face, motionless in sleep. Don had long eyelashes, and his hair was mashed by the pillow into all-new angles. It wasn't quite black like c had thought, nor quite straight. Don was breathing slowly and shallowly, in a rhythm that c thought he knew meant Don really was asleep. There was a kind of safety in that. He could look as much as he wanted until Don woke up.

c waved his hand cautiously in front of Don's face, but Don didn't move. c shifted closer and then closer again, sitting down on the cold floor and leaning in until he could feel the sleeping warmth of Don's body. Don hadn't zipped up his sleeping bag, and he seemed to have his arms folded in close to his chest. A little of the band of his watch was visible on his left wrist, and c suddenly hungered to know what it said, what the time was.

He shut his eyes and forced himself not to care. It didn't matter; time was an arbitrary construct. If he started wanting to know, it would be hard to stop, and he'd wind up scratching at the door, crying and begging until someone came down and forcibly distracted him from the whole concept. He bit down hard on his lip--didn't care, didn't care, not about that--and then opened his eyes to distract himself from time with Don.

So close, he could see the butt of Don's gun, matte black, pressed against the skin of his throat. Don's cheek was smooth; he must have shaved during his hour off. c rubbed at his own itchy days-old stubble, and then reached out a hand toward Don's cheek, with some unformed thought of testing the contrast, before he jerked back. He could feel his heart beating faster, hands closing into helpless fists. He hardly dared to breathe, waiting for Don to wake up, waiting for the inevitable explosion.

Don shifted slightly, sighing in his sleep, and c was close enough to feel the air stirred by his breath. Then he was still again, and c took in a long deep breath and felt a little thrill of recklessness, the same one that had once or twice made him talk back to his tormentors. They only hit him more, but somehow it had felt good to be making them do it, to exert that one sliver of influence available to him.

Don had moved a little; more of the butt of the gun was exposed, and words drifted across c's brain, fragmentary and meaningless. Handle toward my hand. c reached out with a shaking hand, and this time his fingers closed on his target, the plastic grip plate warm from Don's skin when he touched it. He tugged, and then everything happened at once. Don's eyes flashed open--Don's hand closed over his on the gun--Don's arm across his chest pushed him back--Don rolled up and over him.

c blinked and he was on his back on the cold floor, his heart racing and the back of his mouth flooded with a bitter taste, his vision going bright and sharp. Don didn't immediately move, resting above c with most of his weight on his left arm across c's chest, the gun firmly in his right hand. Don glanced at it--c looked too, and Don wasn't pointing the gun at him. Don turned it carefully but kept it aimed away from them both, and then reached back and tucked it into the back of his pants.

Otherwise he didn't move, just stayed suspended above c, and c thought of the hungry look in his eyes, the things he might want, things Williamson had only obliquely threatened so far. This could be it, and all c could think was that he couldn't remember ever being this close to someone else. Don wasn't hurting him yet, and c found he was as much curious as scared, maybe more so. For now, all he felt was warm, between the frantic rush of his own blood and the proximity of Don, who was staring down at c and looking more puzzled than angry.

"Don't do that again," he said. Just that. He didn't even shout the words.

c blinked, baffled, and nodded. He couldn't have spoken if he wanted to. He couldn't breathe, and only half because of the weight on his chest. Don shifted, not moving his arm but redistributing his weight, and c inhaled and nodded again, still waiting for what would happen next.

Don smiled suddenly, inexplicably, and his eyes went warm and intent. c's stomach twisted--this was it--but up close Don didn't look hungry, just focused. He said, "What were you planning on doing with it, anyway? You gonna shoot your way out?"

c opened and closed his mouth. The gun. He'd grabbed the gun. Don hadn't even pointed it at him when he took it away, hadn't even really hit him. c had thought he was provoking Don, but that seemed to be beyond him. He felt off-balance, for all he was firmly on the floor.

"I didn't actually have a plan," he admitted.

Don snorted, shifted off of him entirely, and sat up. c was cold without him, and almost weightless. He sat up too, hugging his knees.

"You gotta have a plan," Don said firmly, and then glanced at his watch. "Shit, c, it's three in the morning. Go to bed."

Three in the morning is an arbitrary construct, he thought, but he said nothing, nodding and stealing a last curious glance at the only person who'd ever told him the time. He went to his cot, lay down and pulled the sleeping bag over himself. It wasn't as warm as Don, and the cold crept up through the canvas of the cot, but it was better than nothing. c was tired, suddenly, now that he was horizontal. The lights went out, and he heard the rustle of Don getting back into his sleeping bag, and a muttered, "Night."

"Night," c whispered back, smiling uncontrollably, invisible in the dark, and then he fell asleep.

Don sat against the wall with a comic book in his hands, watching Charlie work. He was getting better at not getting caught staring--he had nothing but time to cultivate the skill--and it was kind of a satisfying sight, for two days' work. He'd take victories where he could get them for now. Charlie's clothes were clean, and he was working fast and easy, like he used to, no anxiety visible in the line of his shoulders. Don had shaved him again that morning, and taken the opportunity to make sure both their cuts were healing well. They still matched, both scabbed over, but Don had avoided looking into the mirror this time.

Last night, touching Charlie really seemed to have helped--he'd smiled at Don like he was actually happy, if only for that second, and that was a big step. Don would hold Charlie's hand any time if that was the way to get through to him, maybe get him thinking of the two of them as a team, a partnership. If Don could just get Charlie thinking in the right direction, Charlie would find a way out for both of them. Charlie'd make a plan--and that had to be what he was doing here, making plans, Don could work out that much from the numbers he wrote down when he finished a calculation. Charlie's plan would be smart, precise, something better than shooting everyone and running to nowhere, and Don would execute it. He'd get Charlie out of here, get him home--

Don jumped when the walkie-talkie in his pocket crackled. He was still watching Charlie, who looked up at him instantly, eyes going wide, his hand dropping to hold the chalk in a slack grip. Don checked his watch and muttered, "10:10, c," squirming as he pulled the radio from his pocket. It crackled again in his hand, and this time Williamson said, "Wake up, Mac."

"Yeah, what is it?" He kept his eyes on Charlie. Charlie was staring back in his direction, his dark blank gaze fixed on Don's hand, holding the radio.

"Put Know-It-All in handcuffs and bring him up to the garage."

Don went utterly still for a few seconds, instinctive rage rushing through him. His words caught in his throat just long enough for Charlie to shake his head once--a minute, desperate motion--as Don's thumb jabbed the talk button. He shut his mouth so hard his teeth clacked, slid his thumb away and squeezed the radio until his finger joints hurt.

"What?" he whispered furiously, "What, you just--"

"He's the boss," Charlie said, in a small, hoarse voice, and Don bit down everything else he wanted to say. He couldn't blow it now, and Charlie should not have had to remind him of that. Williamson had made his point before, and he could make it again: Williamson controlled the door. He controlled the guys with guns. He controlled Don and Charlie both. Don might be able to refrain from hurting Charlie himself, but he was powerless to stop Williamson from doing it. Don had to be patient. He had to be still. He had to wait until he had a plan.

Charlie was just standing there, waiting for Don to do something, and Don realized that the best he could do now was to spare Charlie the suspense. He got up and went to his duffle, digging into the pocket where he'd stashed the cuffs. There hadn't been a key for them, but if it came to that he could pick them. That would be something to worry about later, on the other side of whatever he was taking Charlie to in the garage.

He went to Charlie and took hold of his right wrist, skinnier than it should be, the bump of bone prominent and the skin so pale Don could see every vein under the faint shine of sweat. He pushed up the sleeve of Charlie's sweater, flipping the first cuff open, and Charlie whispered, "Behind."

Don froze.

"Behind my back," Charlie elaborated, his voice a little steadier but no louder.

He turned to face away without pulling his wrist from Don's grip. Don stared at the back of Charlie's neck, skin bare and unshielded by the familiar fall of curls. He could see the short hairs standing up over Charlie's spine, the fine shiver running through him. Cold, Charlie always seemed to be cold...

Don cleared his throat, forcing himself to think ahead--to think at all--and said, "Do you want to take your sweater off?"

Charlie's arm twitched in Don's grip, but he nodded, seeming to understand--if he took it off now, he could put it back on after, dry and clean--and Don let go of him. He stood with the cuffs in his hands and watched as Charlie shucked off the sweater, folded it neatly, and set it down on the table on top of his notes.

Charlie placed both hands behind his back, palms up, fingers curled, and Don nodded to himself. He had to do this. He'd cuffed lots of people he didn't want to, this was just one more. He'd done this a million times, snapped on the cuffs and rattled off their rights--and then the cuffs were clicking shut on Charlie's wrists and Don wasn't saying a word. Charlie didn't seem to have a right to anything Don could think of, not in this tiny jurisdiction. Don took his hands from the warmth and cold of Charlie's wrists and the cuffs, closing one fist in the back of Charlie's shirt, his knuckles pressing into the small of Charlie's back. He tugged, and Charlie turned and walked beside him to the door, where they both stopped, wondering.

Don reached out and turned the knob, and when he pushed, the door opened. His heart started to race, and Charlie said very softly at his side, "It won't ever be open any other time you try it. You can drive yourself crazy checking."

Don glanced sideways at him--how many kinds of crazy had Charlie been driven, in a hundred and thirty days?--and then propelled him through the door, following a half step behind. There was no one else in the basement, no one on the stairs, no one in the kitchen. Don opened the door to the garage and found it entirely sealed to light from the outside, lit by two bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Williamson was standing there alone, and there was a sturdy-looking wooden chair set in the exact center of the floor, over the drain, facing the back of the garage.

Don guided Charlie down the two steps to the cement floor and said, "As ordered."

Williamson nodded shallowly, looking them both over with a minimal sort of approval, and then came and grabbed Charlie by the arm--by his left elbow, the one Charlie seemed to hold when he was cold or nervous. Charlie flinched at the touch, and Williamson smiled a little. Don unlocked his fingers from Charlie's shirt with an effort and remained standing where he was as Williamson led Charlie over to the chair, guiding his hands over the back. Charlie squirmed a little in the seat, rolling his shoulders to get his elbows into a less uncomfortable position against the edges of the chair back. Don got the feeling Charlie had been there before.

Don couldn't resist glancing toward the outside door. It was just him and Williamson in the garage with Charlie. He could shoot Williamson, grab Charlie...

And probably get shot himself by Jimmy or one or all of the others, waiting outside the door, or attracted by the sound of the gunshot. Assuming he got a kill on the first shot, assuming Williamson didn't draw when Don did and shoot him or Charlie, assuming all kinds of things he couldn't assume, not with Charlie's life on the line. Don forced himself to be still, to wait.

Williamson drew the Beretta from his hip and Don tensed, folding his arms and pressing the back of his hand against his holstered weapon, but Williamson didn't take aim. He drew his hand back and smashed the gun across Charlie's face in one quick, economical motion.

Don flinched at the blow. His fist clenched, knuckles hard against his holster. He'd never wanted so badly to kill someone, or to hurt them in the process. Williamson had struck Charlie near his left eye, opening up a cut just beside his eyebrow that immediately poured blood down his face. Charlie kept his head down, panting, but didn't make a sound as the blood ran forward across his cheek and down the line of his jaw. Don stood his ground.

Williamson turned the gun, glancing at the barrel and wiping it on his sleeve. Without looking up, he said, "Mac, I brought you up here to clarify the chain of command."

Don's stomach rolled, and he understood, instantly and sickeningly. Charlie had told him, "It's a rule." And like an idiot, he'd thought he could get away with doing what he liked, as if no one would know. As if it were true that no one was watching them just because Don couldn't see them watching. They had so much to lose--Charlie had so much to lose--and Don had risked it for nothing. Williamson pressed the barrel of his gun against Charlie's bare cheek, and Charlie flinched and then froze again. Williamson dragged it down his throat, then punched Charlie hard in the chest with the hand holding the gun. Don could see that the blow struck at just the right angle to slam Charlie's shoulder blades against the top of the chair back. Charlie gasped, his head snapping up, and Williamson had already sidestepped, so the fine spray of blood off Charlie's face missed him entirely.

Don kept his face as expressionless as he could, watching. Mac would be disgusted, he thought. Anyone would be disgusted, watching a defenseless man bound and beaten. But Mac would know he had to stand and take this. Mac was getting increasingly clear on the fact that this job wasn't going to end much better for him than for the genius.

"I'm the boss," Williamson said. "Know-Nothing here is my prisoner, who I have hired you to guard. There are procedures. You weren't thoroughly briefed, but I thought you might be smart enough to pick things up as you went along."

Williamson moved around to the near side of Charlie, so that he had his back to Don, blocking his view. His hand snapped out, holding the gun, down toward Charlie's arm, and for an instant, when Charlie screamed, Don thought Williamson had shot him. But there was no blood, and no bang. A radial nerve strike, most likely; Don had experienced that in hand-to-hand training, and it hurt badly enough when it was your opponent's fingers. The barrel of a gun would be worse. He wondered, again, where Williamson had been trained. He was disturbingly good at what he did.

Charlie's scream was short, subsiding into gasps as Williamson stepped aside. Blood covered the entire half of Charlie's face that Don could see, running over the corner of his mouth, dripping from his chin. He was twisting to his left, trying to curl around his injured arm. Williamson walked around behind him and Don could see Charlie cringing away to the limits of his ability to move, the cuffs biting into his bare wrists and his elbows twisted against the back of the chair.

Somewhere inside, Don was drawing his gun, shooting Williamson in the face and damn the consequences--anything it took to be kneeling next to Charlie, getting him free, getting him away. But there in the garage, under Williamson's eyes, he was standing very still, arms crossed, every muscle tensed, watching. Waiting.

Williamson came around Charlie's right side, holding his right hand out--there was no way Don could draw his gun faster than Williamson could bring his to bear--and then made another lightning move, punching with his left hand this time, down at Charlie's back. Charlie didn't scream this time; Don could hear his breath escape him, and the ragged sound of his inhalation. He was trying to curl forward and to his right as Williamson moved in front of him again. A kidney punch, awkward with the seat back in the way--except that Charlie had already been cringing forward and to his left, exposing his back.

Williamson took a step away from Charlie then, and something shifted in his body language, the violence suddenly going latent. Don took an involuntary step forward, drawn toward Charlie, already thinking ahead to what he could do in the way of first aid. Williamson took another few steps away and then smiled and said, "There we go, Mac. Your turn."

Don stopped where he was--conspicuously out of his observer's position near the door, still a few feet short of Charlie--and met Williamson's eyes for the first time since he'd walked into the garage. But there was no mistaking this, and no escape; even as Williamson tilted his head, Don was walking forward to stand in front of Charlie, his hands in fists at his sides, well away from his gun. Before Williamson said anything, Don kicked Charlie in the shin--careful, controlled, not as hard as it probably looked, but he had to get Charlie's attention, and he couldn't risk a gentler touch.

Charlie didn't raise his head, but he looked up at Don. Both his eyes were wet, the left one rimmed with blood, but Charlie--c--Don's brother--was right there, scared and in pain, but not broken, not hiding, not yet pushed beyond his ability to endure. He blinked up at Don, head still bowed, gaze steady. He was waiting too.

Don tore his eyes away to glance at Williamson, raising his eyebrows. Awaiting orders. Williamson seemed to perceive that Don wasn't going to do anything--beyond that first kick--that he wasn't ordered to. He seemed amused.

"Hit him, Mac."

Don didn't hesitate, just turned his eyes back down to Charlie's and struck fast and hard to Charlie's left arm, right below the shoulder. If Charlie was still hurting from the nerve strike, it might disrupt the sensation; if not--well, you couldn't do much harm there. Charlie shut his eyes on the impact, his whole face screwing up and a grunt of pain escaping him, and Don's stomach lurched. It had felt good. Even though it was Charlie, even though it was terrible, sickening, still--he was finally able to hit something. Charlie's eyes flicked up to his again, and Don gritted his teeth against the fierce physical pleasure of action as he held Charlie's gaze.

Williamson spoke before Don looked up for instruction. "In the stomach this time."

Don nodded slightly at that--order received--and telegraphed the blow every inch of the way, until his fist struck Charlie in the belly, just below the ribcage. It was an awkward angle, and though he threw a hard punch--so satisfying, so exactly what his arm and fist and body wanted--it wouldn't be enough to do serious damage. That Houdini thing was a myth. Charlie shut his eyes again, and his breathing hitched badly but continued.

Don glanced up at Williamson while he listened to Charlie's hollow gasps--he had done that, he had hit Charlie hard enough to disrupt his breathing, and he could hardly breathe himself, couldn't let himself think. Williamson jerked his chin toward Charlie.

"Face. I want to see fresh blood."

He'd have to strike on the clean side of Charlie's face to be sure; he had a feeling Williamson would require do-overs if he turned in a substandard performance. He tilted his head, as if choosing his options, delaying until Charlie's eyes were on his, and then he went perfectly still. The instant he saw Charlie freeze in automatic mirror, he punched him neatly in the nose, at just the right angle to bloody it without danger of breaking it. A fresh gush of bright blood ran down over Charlie's mouth, and Charlie winced and then tilted his head back, showing his throat to Don and breathing open-mouthed. Don shook his hand out, knuckles throbbing, forcing himself to breathe.

Williamson said, "Kick him," and when Don looked up, he added, "Not in the shins."

Don looked back at Charlie. He had his eyes nearly shut, but he was still watching Don. Don didn't have a hell of a lot of time to plan, but he thought he could trust Charlie to hold still, and as long as Charlie held still--

He turned and lashed out with a kick to Charlie's midsection full force, leaving nothing for Williamson to complain about. The heel of his boot connected precisely with the point of Charlie's left hipbone, absorbing most of the force of the blow. It'd hurt like fuck to walk for a little while, but he wasn't going to break Charlie's hip with a kick, and he almost certainly wouldn't do any organ damage as the rest of his foot hit Charlie's belly. He'd tried to angle downward to keep from tipping Charlie and the chair--Charlie would hit his head and elbows and hands on the cement if he went over backward, and Don didn't want to think about how ugly that could get--but the blow folded Charlie forward to the limit of his cuffed wrists. Don waited an instant too long to jerk his foot away, and Charlie coughed and then gagged.

He felt the weight of it first and then the heat and the wetness. His sudden flinch backward was only half what he thought Mac's reaction ought to be and half real horror as he stumbled back and saw Charlie's blood dark on his jeans from calf to ankle.

It occurred to Don, as he stared at the top of Charlie's head, that the blood had to be from Charlie's nose; with his head tipped back, it would have been running down his throat until he coughed it up. It was still fucking scary, washing away every other thing he'd felt since he'd first hit Charlie in a cold gush, and Don didn't bother to wipe that entirely off his face as he looked up at Williamson.

Williamson was studying Charlie, looking slightly annoyed. "Do you know how to apply a stranglehold? Properly?"

Don gritted his teeth and pushed down that burst of fear, because he had to do it, and it would almost certainly mean bringing this to an end, and he could do it right. When Williamson looked up, Don nodded, and stepped in close to Charlie, shoving him up against the back of the chair. Charlie looked up at him, his face a mask of blood and tears and sweat. Don wiped his hands on his pants and then put them around Charlie's throat, tilting his head back--chin up, safe as kittens, right? Unless it was the trachea you were aiming for.

Charlie didn't resist. Charlie looked up at him with something dangerously close to trust, and Don gritted his teeth and clamped down on fear and anger and everything. He couldn't look away from Charlie's eyes, and Charlie didn't need to see that. Don stepped in closer so he'd have proper control, straddling Charlie as he sat in the chair, and then he shifted his grip and started applying pressure.

Charlie looked startled at first, his eyes going wide and then blinking rapidly. His mouth worked instinctively, like he couldn't quite believe this was really happening, that there wasn't air to be had. So close, Don could hear the tiny sounds of Charlie's mouth working, reaching for air he couldn't inhale. His eyes slid shut as his tongue pushed out, and all at once Charlie started to fight, straining up against Don, jerking in erratic, uncontrolled motions.

Don tightened his grip, slippery as it was with sweat and blood, and kept his fingers wrapped firmly around the back of Charlie's neck so he couldn't whack it on anything as he bucked. Charlie brought up a knee that hit Don hard in the thigh, and Don winced and shifted, nearly sitting on Charlie to keep him down, holding his grip as Charlie's lips turned blue and the temptation to let up--let him get just a little air--became nearly irresistible. But if he did that he'd have to start over, and it was nearly over now--Charlie's frantic struggles were weakening, and then he went abruptly still. Don let up immediately, keeping his hands on Charlie's neck just long enough to tilt his head all the way back, opening the airway for that first rattling breath, brushing a thumb across the still frantically beating pulse in his neck.

"I didn't tell you to stop."

Don jumped, straightening up and stepping away from Charlie all at once, badly startled. He shouldn't have been able to forget Williamson was there.

Don wiped a hand across his forehead and said, "You didn't tell me to kill him, either."

He knew as soon as he'd said it what the reply would be, and reran the possibilities in his head--shoot Williamson in the face, now or never, grab Charlie, dead weight and injured God knew how badly...

Williamson, expressionless, said, "Kill him," and Don had faced down guns in his face but he had never felt like he was in this much danger. He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears, and he knew what he had to do.

Don folded his arms, mustered up a standard-issue glare of annoyance, and said, "No," in a steady, sturdy voice without hesitating for more than a second.

Williamson raised an eyebrow, but he didn't pull his Beretta and shoot Don in the face. This had to be the right track: if he'd been wrong he'd be dead already. The room was silent except for the low, wet rasp of Charlie's breathing.

"I'm not going to kill him," Don elaborated, glancing at Charlie--still breathing--and then back at Williamson. "It's not the kind of work I do. You're definitely not paying me enough for it, especially considering I haven't seen a dime yet. And anyway, you don't want me to kill him."

There was a flicker of expression on Williamson's face at that, there and gone, and Don smiled, hoping it didn't look as queasy and desperate as it felt.

"He's a hell of a lot more valuable to you than I am, I know that much. You just want to see what I'll do if you tell me to kill him, and there's your answer: I'll tell you to fuck off. So now you know."

Williamson smiled back, shaking his head, for all the world as if Charlie weren't lying there with maybe a bruised larynx, maybe a damaged kidney, maybe choking on his own blood any second now. As if he wouldn't have killed Don if he'd failed that test--but he'd brought Don up here to clarify the chain of command in more senses than one. It could be him in the chair next time, just as easily, with Williamson's hands around his neck. He didn't think Williamson would see any reason to let up before Don was dead.

"Smart," Williamson said, because Williamson could see Don had gotten the message. "I do love having the smart ones around."

He holstered his gun and pulled out a small key, and when he tossed it Don caught it with a quick, steady hand and went straight around to kneel behind Charlie. Don closed his eyes for just a second, while his face was hidden from Williamson, but there was no time for more than that. Charlie was hurt. He'd hurt Charlie, he had no idea how badly. He had to take care of Charlie.

Don had to try three times to get the key into the lock, and then make a quick grab to keep Charlie from falling off the chair. He got one arm around Charlie's back and the other under his knees, lifting Charlie against his chest as he stood. The handcuffs were still dangling from Charlie's left wrist and the key was safe in Don's pocket. Williamson was smiling as Don straightened up, but he went to the door and opened it for him, leading the way inside and down to the basement.

At the bottom of the stairs, Williamson turned back, blocking the door into Charlie's room, and waved Don toward the other side.

"Get those clothes off of both of you. Easier to wash them before the blood dries."

Don stared blankly for a second, and then looked down. He could feel the blood cooling on the leg of his jeans, and his shirt was smeared with blood where Charlie's head rested against his shoulder. Charlie's t-shirt was streaked and spattered with blood, and his pants were wet in spots.

"Before it dries, Mac," Williamson said, and Don lifted his head and bared his teeth in something like a smile.

He laid Charlie carefully on the floor in front of the washing machine, detaching the dangling cuffs from Charlie's left wrist before anything else. There was a red line around Charlie's wrist, already darkening to a bruise against the bone. Don set the cuffs and keys on top of the washing machine along with his walkie-talkie. He wiped his hands on his shirt and then took his holster off, setting it down beside the cuffs, and then crouched awkwardly to take off his boots, staring at the floor, listening to Charlie breathe, pretending Williamson wasn't standing there waiting for him to take his clothes off.

Don shucked off his shirt and jeans quickly, without letting himself think, and stopped there; his shorts and socks were clean. Then it was Charlie's turn, and Don put his back to Williamson, kneeling at Charlie's side and easing his t-shirt up. Charlie was entirely inert, not so much as a flicker under his closed eyelids to suggest he was coming around. The bleeding was slowing, and the blood on his face was congealing, dark and stark against his pale skin. His lips were reassuringly pink under the gore. When Don peeled Charlie's t-shirt off, he could see the bruises already appearing on Charlie's torso: two dark blotches at belly and chest where he'd been punched and a neat outline of half of Don's boot lower down, the heel disappearing under his pants. Don unbuttoned Charlie's jeans and tugged them off, keeping his eyes on his own hands as he did.

He lifted Charlie into his arms again as he stood, and it was the weirdest sensation out of two days of non-stop weirdness: Charlie's skin warm and soft against his, Charlie's cheek heavy against his bare shoulder, the tickle of Charlie's breathing against his chest. The strangest thing about it was the way the contact was reassuring, in a deep-down animal way--every sense told him that Charlie was alive and with him, close and safe as he could be.

Don turned to face Williamson and Williamson jerked his chin toward the open door, stepping past Don to pick up Don's stuff from the washing machine. He laid it all on the floor just inside the door as Don walked toward the cot, shut the door and then locked and barred it just before Don's knees gave out and he sat down hard on top of the messy heap of Charlie's sleeping bag.

Charlie's head lolled back over Don's arm, and Don tried to think of what he had to do next--triage, first aid--though there wasn't a hell of a lot he could do beyond cleaning Charlie up, and he was running full-tilt into an adrenaline hangover. He didn't know if he could even stand up again right this second. He curled forward to lean his forehead against Charlie's, close enough to feel Charlie's breath on his cheek, stinking of blood and bile but still moving, still alive. Don could feel a shaking in his arms and didn't know whether it was himself shivering or Charlie. He could hear his own breath in the space between them, nearly as loud and as hoarse as Charlie's.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and it had to be safe enough now, when Charlie couldn't hear him, couldn't hear his voice sounding so ragged and small. "Charlie, buddy, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry."

Everything--no.

A lot of things hurt. c was pretty sure some things didn't hurt: his balls, for one. Or two. His legs didn't really hurt, except maybe a faint throb in one shin, nearly drowned out by everything that hurt more.

His right shoulder was another, and not only did that not hurt but he felt warm there, warm and--

c opened his eyes, and Don's face hovered just above his, frowning. The gaudy smear of blood across his forehead and one cheek was new. The warmth on c's shoulder was Don's left hand resting there, and Don's right hand was holding a warm wet washcloth against c's face.

c blinked a couple of times, and Don said, "Hey, c, you with me?"

There was something cool against the back of c's neck. He looked around without moving and worked out that they were in the bathroom. He was propped up against the toilet, his head tilted back against the rim, and Don was crouching over him, and...

c's eyes slid down from Don's face to his neck to his chest to the soft gray of his jockey shorts, hovering not at all far above c's own boxers, and then his eyelids felt heavy and he let them fall shut.

"c?" Don said softly, and then sighed, and c thought he should open his eyes again, or say something, but his head hurt, and his throat hurt, and a lot of other things hurt. Don was touching his shoulder and his face, gently and warmly, and c didn't really think he needed to say anything at all for a little while. Don would understand.

He heard Don say his name a couple of times, but he was distracted by the slow, steady throb of the pain beside his left eye. He could see it as a wave function if he concentrated, and he was trying to work out how to quantify amplitude and whether he could incorporate color or prickliness when cold water splashed over his face. He opened his eyes--the right further than the left--blinking rapidly and doing his best to glare, though he couldn't, really, because it made his face hurt worse and corrupted the data.

He tried to say, "Hey," instead, but only a thin, painful whisper emerged from his mouth, and he wasn't sure Don would be able to derive any particular meaning from it. Don was still crouching closely over him, having just wrung out the washcloth over his face. Don moved away a little bit--just far enough to stick the cloth under the tap, just far enough for c to realize how much warmer he was with Don so close, all that skin radiating heat. He became a bit distracted by the view--Don's back was broad and bare, and c spotted two scars there before Don twisted around and settled over him again. When the cloth touched his face this time it was warm, and c closed his eyes only long enough for it to pass over them.

When the damp warmth settled over his throat, c swallowed cautiously and tried again to speak.

"That's nice," he whispered, thin and painful but at least intelligible, as he looked up at Don. There was blood on Don's shoulder, as well as on his face. None of it seemed to be Don's, though; Don only looked hurt in his eyes. c wanted to say that he wasn't really badly hurt--this wasn't nearly as bad as the time Williamson had hit him in the head so hard that he woke up vomiting, for instance, or the time he'd had his elbow dislocated and Williamson waited and waited and waited to put it back. But he knew Don wanted to take care of him, he remembered that from... last night? It seemed longer ago than that. And anyway it would be hard to say that much. And a lot of things did hurt.

The worry in Don's eyes seemed to ease a little when c spoke to him, even though it was just two words, and Don said, "You're gonna have a scar here."

He raised a hand next to c's face, not quite touching the spot. "Should've had stitches, but I taped it up and I think it'll hold."

c nodded a little bit, just a slight motion, but it hurt anyway. Don winced when c did, like looking into a mirror.

"I want to check if you've got a concussion, all right?" Don asked. "Just blink twice for yes, if it hurts too much to talk."

c smiled a little bit at that--it didn't hurt to smile--and then blinked twice. Don smiled a little bit back. Just like looking in a mirror.

"This is going to hurt," Don said, and then he put his hand on c's face, dragging his left eye further open, and started shining a light in his eyes. c blinked a lot--yes yes yes no no no yes no yes yes--but Don's hand stayed steady on his face, and the light flashed back and forth from one eye to the other and back before it finally went away. He could feel water running from his eyes, but Don just wiped it away with the cloth.

"Looks okay," Don said. "Your pupils are the same size and reactive to light, that's a good sign. Do you remember what time it was, the last time I told you the time?"

c blinked twice, took a breath, and said, "10:10. Don."

Still just a thready whisper and it hurt like a bastard, but it made Don smile at him, so c figured it was worth it.

"Good," Don said.

He looked down, his fingers tracing over c's other hurts, and c watched at first, Don's fingers running over his skin with all of Don's skin in his peripheral vision, but seeing the touch and feeling it all at once was too much, and he had to close his eyes.

"You're gonna have some nasty bruises," Don said, "But I think you'll live."

c opened his eyes again and blinked twice. Don nodded solemnly and reached for something on the floor by his foot. It turned out to be an orange tablet as big as the tip of Don's thumb. When he held it up he said "I want you to suck on this until it's gone, okay? It's just sugar. Not quite orange juice and a cookie, but it's the best I can do right now."

c blinked at the part about orange juice and a cookie--that almost made sense to him, but he didn't know why--and then hastily blinked again for yes, raising his shaky right hand to take the tablet from Don's fingers. He licked it cautiously before he stuck it in his mouth, but it was sugar, orange-flavored, and his mouth watered painfully at the taste of it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had anything so sweet. He held it on his tongue, letting it dissolve, watching Don watching him. When the last trace of sugar was gone--and he rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, swallowing hard, to be sure--c licked his lips and then his fingers, and then smiled at Don the best he could and whispered, "Thanks."

The sugar felt warm in his stomach, and he imagined he could feel its diffusion into his bloodstream. He started to feel a little more alert almost instantly--enough to contemplate lifting his head sometime in the foreseeable future, maybe. He glanced down his own body again, letting his fingers trail over his skin as Don's had.

His throat hurt almost as much outside as in, and he remembered fighting uncontrollably against Don's grip, Don's weight pressing him down and down into darkness. Lower down, he could hardly bear to touch the bruise on his chest, half-obscured by hair, but ugly. Both his wrists were ringed in red, and his poor left arm... It wasn't its fault it was non-dominant and he didn't, in the view of his captors, need it quite as much as the right. c cupped his right hand briefly around his left elbow before he continued his exploration down on his stomach.

There was a round bruise from a punch, and below it an oddly neat bootprint from Don's kick, fading toward the toe and stronger further back. It disappeared under the edge of his boxers, and c pushed them down in pursuit of it, to the point where the bruise turned black, where Don's heel had struck his hipbone. Pain radiated from the spot, a deep, slow, serious throb. It was the bone that hurt, he thought, like healing fingers or a well-bashed skull.

Above him, he heard Don hiss with sympathy, and Don's fingers traced lightly over the borders of the bruised skin, just where it didn't hurt. The backs of Don's fingers brushed his hand, still pushing down the waistband of his boxers, and for a moment he just wanted to push further, push them off, and see what else Don would touch so gently, if c bared it.

Then Don's hand lifted away, and c remembered that he wasn't really ready to lift his head yet, let alone try anything more strenuous, so it was probably for the best. Don's hand came back holding one of that morning's coffee mugs, filled now with tap water. c raised his eyes to Don's and blinked twice, as emphatically as he could, parting his lips to be sure of making himself clear. He didn't raise his hand this time, but Don didn't seem to mind holding the mug for him. He set one hand against the back of c's neck and raised the mug to his lips with the other.

c tried not to drink too fast, but Don kept the mug tilted so carefully that he wasn't in any danger of choking. When he'd gotten enough he blinked once, firmly, and Don took the mug away and held up a white tablet, small enough to swallow. Probably. It said 800 on the side facing c.

"This is ibuprofen," Don said. "It should help your pain, but it might hurt your stomach if you take it without eating anything. You can have it later, or you can take it now and if your stomach starts to hurt we can deal with it."

c looked from the tablet back to Don, baffled. He didn't know why Don had 800 milligram ibuprofen--that was a lot, he knew that was a lot, good stuff--but it stood to reason that any dose of it he gave to c was a dose he couldn't use himself later if he needed it. But Don wanted him to feel better--wanted to give him a choice about feeling better, even. c blinked twice and opened his mouth again. He could probably have managed to get the tablet into his mouth, but he didn't raise his hand and Don set it on his tongue quite competently, raising the mug again so he could get another sip of water to wash it down. It didn't work as fast as the sugar, and tasted much worse, but c smiled at Don and whispered, "Mister nice guy."

Don raised his eyebrows, smiling a little but looking almost as surprised by c as c usually was by him, which was only fair.

"Did you miss the part where I did half of this to you?"

c blinked once, slowly, deliberately, as clearly as he knew how. No. He hadn't missed anything: not the way Don had looked him in the eye as he hit him, as he choked him, like c was a person, like it was something the two of them shared and not something Don did to some thing. He hadn't missed the way Don hadn't liked doing it, and hadn't done a thing he wasn't ordered to. He hadn't missed the way Don had let c correct him about the handcuffs this time, when it really mattered. He hadn't missed this, Don cleaning up the mess he'd made of c.

Don still looked baffled. c felt around with his left hand--it hurt to move it, an ache up and down his arm, but he could manage just fine. It wasn't like having his elbow dislocated at all. The cloth Don had been using was there on the floor, though it had gone cool now. c picked it up and transferred it to his right hand, drawing Don's attention. While Don was looking down at his hands, c raised the cloth to Don's face, wiping at the streak of blood on his forehead.

Don looked up under the touch, meeting c's eyes with a searching gaze, but c just blinked twice--yes--and went on scrubbing Don's face clean, and then his shoulder. Don held perfectly still, permitting his efforts. When the last of the blood was gone, c let his arm sag, and Don took the cloth from him and rinsed it again.

"Thanks, c," he said softly, and he ran his hand over c's hair.

c smiled and let his eyelids sag nearly shut. Don moved further away from him, to his left side, and said, "Come on, you don't want to sleep here, do you?"

c opened his eyes again, looking up at him, and no, it wouldn't be a good place to sleep. He was cold, without Don over him. Don slid an arm behind his shoulder and pulled him up to a proper sitting position. c could feel the twinge in his belly, where it would have been much more painful if he'd pulled himself up. His head and his hip throbbed harder once he was upright, and it hurt to put his weight on his left leg. He went a little dizzy, and had to lean his head against Don's shoulder. Maybe he didn't have to lean quite so heavily, or stay put so long, but Don didn't seem to mind.

Don was worried by the way Charlie was leaning on him. There wasn't any sign that he had a concussion, and none of his other injuries seemed critical--though there'd be no telling about the kidney until Charlie took a piss--but he didn't seem able, or willing, to walk on his own from the bathroom to his cot.

Then again, it might just be that he was cold; Don hadn't bothered to get either of them dressed before he started working on Charlie. He'd have liked to get Charlie covered up--as much to hide the darkening bruises as to keep him warm--but the only clothes available were the dirty ones Charlie had taken off that morning before showering. They reached the cot and Don stopped, keeping his arm around Charlie to steady him.

"You want to put your clothes on?"

Charlie looked from the paper bag to the blackboards to his cot, and Don frowned. He didn't want Charlie thinking that he should get back to work--not if he could barely stand up by himself, and he had to be in far too much pain to even think about math right now, though maybe he wanted the distraction. But he'd be cold on his cot without clothes, since he didn't seem to want to actually sleep inside his sleeping bag. Don gestured toward the cot, hoping to distract Charlie from whatever calculation he was performing about how badly he wanted yesterday's sweatpants and socks.

"You know you could zip that up, it would be warmer."

Charlie looked up at him, and Don could see him choosing his words. He cursed himself for not phrasing it as a question that Charlie could answer by blinking. It hurt just listening to the ragged whisper that was all Charlie could get out of his throat. The bruises there were ugly, black and purple, and Don thought he could make out the shape of his own fingers. The sight made him feel sick, but he couldn't look away.

"Panic," Charlie said, and waved his hand in a vague gesture at the cot.

Don thought that over for a second and then nodded. "You panic? You're too confined, right? Can't get away from anything."

Charlie nodded shallowly, and Don glanced back at the cot. Charlie would have to sleep on his right side. It was the opposite of the way he usually slept, and he was bound to try to flip over and fall on the floor or something--God knew he'd fallen out of bed often enough as a kid.

"Okay," Don said, keeping one hand on Charlie's shoulder to steady him and leaning down to grab the sleeping bag off the cot. "I think we can do better than this."

He wrapped the sleeping bag around Charlie (like a cape, and he remembered Charlie, five years old, running through the house on the third day of a cold with his blanket tied around his neck and trailing behind him. Ten minutes later he'd crashed on the couch, cheeks flushed red, curly hair damp with sweat, his blanket just a blanket again) and guided him down to sit on the floor.

Don went to the cot first and tipped it up on its end, watching for a moment to make sure it would stay--but the end was square, the legs flush to the ground, so it ought to be all right. Then he stepped around it to where his stuff was piled, near the door. The sight of his radio and holstered Sig and the handcuffs and key, all piled neatly on the floor, stopped him for a second. He grabbed the handcuffs and key and stuffed them into a pocket of his duffle, laid his holster and the walkie-talkie on top, and picked up his bedroll. He tossed the ground mat down parallel to where the cot had been and practically at Charlie's feet where he was sitting, watching. Don unzipped his sleeping bag and laid it out on top of the mat and all the way to the wall, and then put his pillow at the far end of the side with the mat.

"Okay," he said, "come on and lie down."

Charlie looked up at him, half curious and more grateful than Don could stand to see. Don waved toward the side with the pillow.

"That's for you. I just hope you don't hog the covers."

He went over to his duffle and shrugged his holster onto one shoulder, then opened up the bag. For a second he considered putting some clothes on, but decided not to. He didn't want to if Charlie couldn't. Don picked up a handful of comic books and went back over to the makeshift bed, where Charlie was already lying on his side with the sleeping bag carefully spread out to share. He'd pushed the pillow as much to the middle as he could and only rested his head on the very end. Don stepped over him to lay down on the side nearer the wall, setting his holster and gun down by the wall as he looked up to confirm that the cot screened them somewhat from the door. He lay on his side, propped on his elbow instead of laying down on the pillow, and dropped the comic books between them.

"Here you go," Don said. "All you need is chicken soup and it's a real sick day."

Charlie smiled at him, raised his left hand to his mouth and mimed a cough. Don gave him a little smile and nodded, pushing the comic books closer. Charlie took one, squirming around to hold it so that he could see it without lifting his head, and Don took another and spread it out on the concrete past the edge of the sleeping bags, turning onto his stomach to read with his chin propped on his wrists.

He played games with the comic books when he read them, to make them last longer. He'd glance for just a second at a panel and then shut his eyes and tried to remember every detail he could of what he'd seen, including words in the bubbles. Or he'd close his eyes and imagine it as a movie, trying to improve on the dialogue and figure out how they'd do the special effects. He could make two pages last an hour, if he worked at it, interspersing his games with glimpses of Charlie.

Now he didn't even have to look; there were maybe six inches separating them. He could feel the warmth of Charlie's body alongside his own. Charlie didn't fidget, but he turned pages much more often than Don did. Don had done five rounds of the eyewitness testimony game--he was improving, he could remember nearly every color in a panel accurately after the quickest glance--when he realized Charlie had stopped turning pages. Don looked up and saw that Charlie had folded the comic book over, and was letting the book rest on the pillow as he stared at it.

Don pushed up on one elbow to see which page he was finding so fascinating, but it wasn't even a page of the comic: it was a full page ad for some teen drama that had come out a couple of years ago. Charlie looked up at him and then set a finger on the page next to a blonde girl in a low-cut shirt. Don had never thought that Charlie was really into blondes, and he raised an eyebrow, smiling.

"You like her?"

Charlie swallowed laboriously and then whispered, "Never seen one."

The smile vanished off Don's face and his stomach dropped, and even as he realized exactly what Charlie meant he was groping for something else, anything else--never seen a TV ad, never seen a TV show, never--

Never seen a girl.

Not that Charlie could remember, anyway. Not that c could remember. Don forced himself to smile, because Charlie didn't seem upset, and started to say the first thing that came to mind.

"You want to be--" and then he stopped short.

Charlie--c--tilted his head and mouthed, "What?"

Don shook his head but explained anyway. He didn't have the heart not to. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to be alone with her."

But that wasn't an option, of course: Charlie couldn't be alone, anywhere, ever, and the idea of trying to leave him alone with--for--Don shook his head, trying to push the whole idea away. It didn't bear thinking about.

Charlie just smiled, though, a little lopsided in his battered face, not seeming to mind Don saying something so stupid. He blinked once, deliberately, for no, and whispered, "I'm good."

Don smiled cautiously back and went back to looking at his comic book, but it was hard to concentrate. Soon he was turning pages nearly as fast as Charlie.

c glanced at Don as he reached for another comic book, and realized that Don had been entirely still--his chin on his wrists, his eyes shut, his comic book open to the same page--for the entire time it had taken c to read that installment of Batman and Robin's adventures. This seemed to be taking Don's tendency to linger over his comic books to an extreme. c whispered, "Hey," as loudly as he could.

Don didn't move, and c was reluctant to actually make an effort to wake him. It was kind of nice, lying here. c nestled down into the pillow and lay still, watching Don sleep, perfectly motionless except for the rise and fall of his breathing. He didn't dare to touch Don, but he could feel the heat and the solid presence of Don's body, inches from his own, sharing covers. The pill Don had given him seemed to have taken the edge off his pain--the waveform was much less interesting now, more uniform--a smooth steady ache that he found almost entirely ignorable.

c watched Don sleep and let the expression spin out, playing with numbers that were all his own, for once--nothing anyone wanted from him, nothing anyone here would ever be able to understand, abstraction piling on abstraction until he had no idea whether it was math anymore, or just a game he was playing in his head.

He thought again about getting up and doing some actual work, but he liked this, lying here warm and quiet with Don, doing his own math in his own time. It didn't have to be translatable. He didn't have to construct a single split-second timing sequence from it. And he'd fucking well earned this today, hadn't he? Williamson was nicely pragmatic about what work Know-Nothing could be expected to do after something like this; there was an excellent probability (he'd place it in the upper eighties, perhaps as high as ninety, Williamson's own favorite) that the boss wouldn't even bother with a dinnertime visit tonight.

c maneuvered slowly backward, slipping out from under the sleeping bag without disturbing Don. Once on the concrete, he didn't give himself time to shiver, but pushed to his feet as quickly as he could, crouching with his hands on his knees and his feet spread wide until he could be sure of his balance. His head and hip throbbed, and he noticed that his bruises had darkened further--everything certainly hurt more standing up--but he managed to limp over to the light switch by the door and, after a quick glance around to memorize the altered layout, shut it off.

He made his way back to the sleeping bags and heard movement as he crouched down, reaching toward the floor. Don shifted, tossing the top sleeping bag back.

"Hey," he said softly, and c felt Don's hand reaching toward him, searching. When c set a hand on Don's arm, Don's hands settled on him, easing him down to the floor. c held on even after he was safely down, so that Don had to turn onto his side, facing him. Don held on too, his hand on c's shoulder, and c closed his eyes and listened until Don's breathing settled back into sleep, Don's hand resting heavy and open on his side.

His own hand rested carefully still on Don's arm. He didn't quite hold on, but he didn't let go, either. There was math in Don's breathing, numbers in the warm skin under his fingers and the heat they shared. They were a closed circuit, a completed matrix. c closed his eyes and followed the expression where it led.

Don woke up again to Charlie shaking his shoulder and the brightening light of someone opening the door, and reached automatically for his gun. The cot half-blocked the light, and would block them from the sight of whoever had opened the door until they stepped inside. Don was on his feet, his gun in his hand, before he quite knew what was going on. He dropped the sleeping bag back down over Charlie and patted his shoulder, half reassurance, half a warning to keep his head down.

Charlie seemed to understand, tucking his head into the pillow. Don barely had time to register that Charlie's bruises looked worse now, even in the uncertain light, before he was stepping onto the concrete floor, glancing at his watch as he headed toward the door. It was nearly seven--at night, he thought, it must be his hour off--but it wasn't Williamson at the door, just Jimmy standing there staring at him. Don blinked at him, wondering how many kinds of bizarre picture he presented, nearly naked and holding his Sig.

He smiled slightly, which seemed to disconcert Jimmy, and picked up his jeans from the top of the stack of clean laundry just inside the door. Jimmy ostentatiously turned his back as Don pulled them on, and Don grinned as he did them up. It was nice to be the one making somebody else squirm for once. He checked his safety and tucked the Sig into the back of his pants and the walkie-talkie into his pocket before he pulled on a t-shirt. He grabbed his duffle and the paper bag of Charlie's dirty clothes, and stepped over the threshold.

When Jimmy turned to look at him, he smiled again, and Jimmy actually stepped away from him this time. Don locked and barred the door and brushed past Jimmy to throw stuff into the washing machine. Jimmy muttered, "Fucking weirdo," not quite under his breath, and headed up the stairs.

Don turned all the washing machine settings to cold and switched it on, then headed upstairs to the bathroom for his shower and shave. He still felt off-balance and disoriented--it was dark out, which seemed right, except that it felt like the middle of the night or early morning, heading toward dawn. His time-sense was going to get as scrambled as Charlie's, if it wasn't already. Life down the rabbit hole was like that.

He got into the shower, thinking vague middle-of-the-night thoughts about rabbits--he'd read a book about them in high school once, hadn't he? Two of them had been brothers, one a genius and the other a leader, and they'd both been heroes, together. He'd been annoyed by the book then, the way he was annoyed by everything in high school that seemed to be telling him to be nice to Charlie. He thought he could stand to read it again now--he remembered it being long, for one thing, and it'd kill some time.

He washed up on autopilot, and his hand was on his dick, stroking absently, before he really gave any thought to what he was doing. He hadn't jerked off in... he couldn't actually remember how long, which didn't surprise him much if he considered he'd been on a case for the last four and a half months straight. He thought, randomly, of what he'd almost said to Charlie, about leaving him alone with his comic book girl--and Charlie was alone now, wasn't he? And that was a really badly counterproductive line of thought in this situation.

Don pushed away the image of Charlie--his bruises and blood, leaning like he couldn't stand on his own--which was making him feel vaguely sick. Don shut his eyes and pretended he had all the time in the world to shower, calling up the usual vague images of women--the blonde from the bar, months ago, for instance--but she seemed like someone he'd only heard about, as if he had amnesia too, like his whole life had closed down to that room he lived in with Charlie, and only the past three days were real. The only woman he could remember clearly was the girl in the comic book, with Charlie's finger planted next to her frozen smiling face.

He gritted his teeth and thought of her, of gravity-defying women in spandex and masks from the comic books he'd been reading, of nothing at all, and friction did the job. He finished washing up, feeling awake and a little bit good. Some unacknowledged tension was gone from his body, a counter flipping over to zero. Some still-thirteen-year-old part of him thinking why don't I do that all the time? Then he was out of the shower, drying off and dressing, shaving.

He was cold when he stepped out of the bathroom. He headed straight down to the basement and moved the clothes to the dryer, turned the settings to hot. He checked his watch, realizing with a smile that he could go back in to Charlie whenever he felt like it, since Williamson wasn't in there with him. His stomach growled as he thought it, though--he didn't know what the hell had happened to lunch today, but even down the rabbit hole it was time for dinner.

He took the stairs two at a time back to the kitchen, and one of the guys was sitting at the table, eating a sandwich and staring out the window into the darkness. Don went to the fridge and got out stuff to make his own sandwich, and the guy--Sam, it was Sam, the one who'd been in the kitchen that first day who wasn't Jimmy--looked up at him. Don nodded a little, and Sam nodded back.

A couple of minutes later, as Don was putting things away and debating whether to go eat in the basement, Sam said, "Jimmy said you had the lights off down there."

Don looked up, saw the mildly curious look on Sam's face that had to be hiding much more--Jimmy wouldn't have stopped at the lights being off--and grabbed a can of soda from the fridge before he headed over to the table to eat. He sat down across from Sam. It was past time he started getting a better idea of who was who upstairs, and Sam was the first one who'd showed any willingness to talk.

"Yeah," Don said. "Well, no windows, Know-It-All doing his thing twenty hours a day. Get totally fucked not knowing whether it's day or night."

Sam nodded slowly, and Don let him stare, eating his sandwich in big bites. He'd want to make a sandwich for Charlie, too, look around for some fruit or cookies or something, see if there was anything that would keep for a while, maybe start a little stash of snacks. He'd have to see if he could get Charlie to nibble on things, might help him get some weight back. And if there was a single thing that looked like a treat in this kitchen, Charlie deserved it today.

Don glanced up again at Sam to find Sam still watching him, and raised his eyebrows. Sam just snorted and shook his head.

"Christ, you couldn't pay me enough to babysit that freak."

Don kept chewing, and noticed with a certain degree of professional detachment how very much that sounded like the sort of thing he'd punched people for saying to him in high school. Sam seemed to know exactly what he'd said and was watching for a reaction, but whether it was the nap or the shower Don was feeling calm, and it was easy not to show anything. When he'd swallowed, Don said, "Yeah, well, it's not really hard. He does his thing, I get paid."

Sam shrugged. Don kept eating, thinking things over. Sam was the reasonable one up here--or it was his job to seem like the reasonable one. Here he was talking to Mac, sympathizing with him just when Mac was bound to want to trust someone. He missed Terry desperately--she could have told him how to exploit this, the best things to say--but he didn't need her to tell him not to say more than he had to, or give himself away more than he could help.

"Boss thinks you like the brain," Sam said, again while Don's mouth was full.

Don shrugged. Williamson could probably be pretty certain Mac liked his genius charge after today. He might think he had Mac in line; he might not. He certainly had the rest of his men in line and that included Sam, which meant Don might as well be sitting here with the man himself. Don washed down his bite with a gulp of soda and said, "I try and like people I gotta be around all day. Makes life easier."

Sam nodded, looking away, and spoke off-handedly. "Just between you and me, I wouldn't go getting attached to that one."

Just between him and Don and Williamson and everyone else in the house but maybe Charlie, Don didn't doubt. He wondered whether that was a specific warning or a general one, and how the hell he'd tell the difference. Not like there was much he could do either way except keep his boots on and his gun handy. Their strategic situation sucked: he was going to have to wait for something to break upstairs, if Charlie didn't spontaneously decide to offer him some better ideas. Maybe he could find some way to upset the balance of Williamson's men, but he didn't think he could do it through Sam. Sam was paying too much attention.

"Liking's not the same as attached," Don said firmly, popped the last of his sandwich in his mouth, and stood up.

Sam went on sitting there as Don made a sandwich and rummaged around looking for goodies--he found a couple of apples that looked all right and some crackers, but no sweets. He wondered if there were some kind of black market trade in groceries and, if so, how he could possibly find his way into it. He grabbed a soda, settling everything safely in one arm. Jerking his chin toward the stairs, he said, "Get the door for me?"

Sam nodded and followed him down. Don detoured quickly to grab his and Charlie's only-moderately-damp clothes from the dryer, and then let himself into Charlie's room. he didn't look back as Sam shut, locked, and barred the door, but he allowed himself a single deep breath, unobserved. It was a bad sign that he was starting to feel safer down here than up there, when up there was closer to freedom. It would be a dangerous habit of thought to get into, but he could feel it creeping toward him, and he wasn't sure there was any way to stop it.

Don focused on Charlie instead. Charlie was up, standing at one of the boards further down the room with all the overhead lights off, the work light shining directly on him and that board. He had his left hand braced against the board, and he was fully dressed again, sweatpants and sweater and all. He looked just like he had three days ago, until he turned his head toward Don. The light shone directly on his face, on his left eye nearly swelled shut, on the black line of the cut and the white stripes of the tape standing out against dark purple bruising. His nose was red and swollen, too, and there were dark bruises ringing his throat. He smiled at Don as he stood there, still holding a hand against the blackboard to stay upright.

Don smiled back as best he could and waved at the food. "Come on, dinner time, take a break. You shouldn't be working."

Charlie shrugged, but came away obediently. "Got bored," he whispered, and Don winced at the rasp.

Charlie lowered himself awkwardly to the floor, and Don let him do it for himself, putting the sandwich directly into his hands once he was down. He settled beside Charlie, hands between his knees. It was too dark over here to read, with the overhead lights off, but that was all right. He'd gone through way more than his daily ration of comic books today. He should probably start working out to kill time and to keep sharp, shake the impulse to sleep away his forced confinement. Charlie trusted him a little more now, he thought. He might not have to be so careful about keeping quiet.

For now, though, he would sit with Charlie and make sure he ate. Charlie was pressed close to his left side, so that it was the right side of his face in Don's peripheral vision, undamaged but for the fading line of a shaving cut on his jaw. Don raised his left hand to his own face, rubbing his thumb against his lip to feel the roughness of his own small cut, and Charlie swayed a little bit, leaning against his shoulder. Not because he couldn't sit up, Don thought--he'd been standing just fine when Don came in--but because he wanted to be close.

He remembered that the rabbits in the book he'd read had been like that too, always squeezing together in their little burrows, taking comfort from each other's presence. Don picked up an apple from the assortment at Charlie's feet and leaned against Charlie right back.

Don remembered to give Charlie another ibuprofen around eleven. He'd already gotten back to work by then and wouldn't stop, glaring mutely but fiercely when Don tried to pull him away from the chalkboard. Don finally went to sleep himself, for a few fitful hours, in the shared sleeping bags by the wall. He left his gun lying on the floor by his head, where Charlie could have reached it if he particularly wanted to. If Charlie was going to trust him, Don figured he might as well start trusting Charlie.

He fought his way up near to consciousness once, but Charlie was asleep beside him, and Don thought hazily, Well, that's all right, then, and went back to sleep. The next time he woke up Charlie was back at the chalkboard, though he couldn't have slept more than an hour or two. Don felt wide awake. It was barely four in the morning, but he sat up watching Charlie for a while.

He was startled as hell by the arrival of Sam bearing coffee and power bars, and Charlie actually followed him over near the door to get his hands on the coffee. Don drank his, ate his power bar and some crackers that were still sitting on the floor--Charlie's apple and half the crackers had disappeared at some point while Don was sleeping--and then turned on the rest of the lights and tried to pretend like it was daytime in some meaningful sense, though after the first rush from the coffee he started running down.

He thought about suggesting a shower, but Charlie had that really focused look on his face that suggested he still didn't intend to be interrupted, and after giving a second's thought to the idea of parading him past the guys this morning, battered as he was, Don gave up before he even started. He paced, stretched, did a half-assed workout with his eyes on Charlie the whole time. Charlie didn't seem to hear a thing. Don gave Charlie another pill when eleven rolled around again, and fell asleep for a while with a comic book in his hands. When he woke up, lunch was sitting at his feet and Charlie was still working.

He ate and paced, touring Charlie's chalkboards to see if anything looked familiar, but he'd never paid that much attention to what Charlie actually wrote out, always waiting for Charlie to boil it down to the FBI Agent's Digest version. He spent some time figuring out how close he could get to Charlie and the chalkboard he was working at before Charlie started swatting him away. Pretty close, as it turned out: less than a foot if he was careful and quiet and didn't try to touch the chalkboard. Closer from the left side than the right, not surprisingly, but if he walked up behind Charlie he couldn't get within two feet before Charlie whirled around, startled at first and then annoyed.

Don was standing at the back wall, trying to figure out if there was a window concealed behind the left-hand chalkboard, when he heard Charlie clear his throat and turned toward him. Charlie was standing by the card tables in the middle of the room, holding a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Tell Williamson." His voice was louder than it had been yet, almost steady. "I'm done."

Don nodded once, slowly, not really sure what that was supposed to mean. Charlie staggered over to the sleeping bags and lay down on the side nearer the wall where Don had mostly been sleeping. He tugged the pillow squarely under his head, went to sleep, and stayed that way for about twenty-four hours.

c knew it was Don right away, because no one else would wake him by kicking him gently. He rolled onto his back and winced.

Don crouched down beside him and said, "Yeah, here," and pressed a tablet to his mouth. c swallowed it dry, and then pushed himself up to sit and drink the water Don offered him.

"5:30. PM. On the nineteenth. Williamson's coming down." Don said. "Thought you'd rather be awake and medicated."

c nodded his thanks, smiling though his bruises all hurt worse than ever--they'd had time to get ripe while he was sleeping through an entire day--and Don smiled back. Then came the sound of the door opening, and Don straightened up and stepped away. c closed his eyes and listened to Don's brisk footsteps until they were gone. He opened his eyes when the door closed.

Williamson paused by the vertical cot, and looked it up and down in a pointed way, but c didn't even bother to think about standing. Williamson walked over in front of him, leaning lightly against the now-cleared card tables. He held up the single sheet of paper that held the distillation of the last however-many-days' work.

"You're sure about these results?" he asked.

c nodded. Of course he was sure. He'd checked all the best probabilities three times. He knew whose ass was on the line if things went wrong. He'd made no superfluous assumptions, he'd done exactly what Williamson wanted, with machine-like precision, if worse handwriting.

"You're sure," Williamson repeated.

"I'm sure," c said. His voice sounded low and rusty to his own ears, but it didn't hurt quite as badly as he expected it to.

Williamson nodded and pulled a folder out of his coat, dropping it on the table behind him. "Get to work on this."

c nodded. There would be intel on the next job: numbers, diagrams, pages of observations--all carefully stripped of any identifying information or extraneous factors Williamson didn't want him to consider--and instructions for the scenario he was to construct. Input, output. Machine-like.

Williamson looked down at him, sitting in a tangle of sleeping bags, and it occurred to c to worry, just for a second, about how it would look, and whether Williamson would be angry. But Williamson snorted something close to a laugh, shook his head again and pulled out a walkie-talkie, into which he said, "Hey, Jimmy, come open the door, and bring Know-Nothing's dinner."

c leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes then, listening to Williamson wandering around. He'd look at the boards, but he never asked c what they meant anymore. He'd stopped pretending to care at the same point he'd stopped pretending that c was anything other than a brain on legs to be controlled by the regular application of pain and terror. c rubbed his elbow and listened for the opening of the door. When it came, he pushed up to his feet, walked near to the door to take a plate of food, plastic fork, and bottle of water from Williamson's hands.

Then Williamson and Jimmy both left, and c was alone again, for the second time in three days. Well, it was possible he'd been alone the day before, too, but he'd been asleep, so he hadn't appreciated it. He celebrated by taking a piss, though Don not being there didn't make much difference at this point. They were both pretty used to each other, as far as c could tell, and becoming expert in the fine art of pretending the bathroom had a door.

He took a look at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands. He was able to open his left eye further today than he had been when he'd gone to sleep, and the bruising was going green at the edges. His nose seemed pretty much back to normal, and the razor-cut on his jaw was healing nicely, just a pink double line now. The bruising on his throat was starting to fade, all brown and green like camouflage. He wiped his hands on his sweater, and then pulled his shirts up and peered down at himself.

The bruises on his belly and chest were going nicely multi-colored, but the bootprint was still dark and his hip still hurt like hell. He reached around and poked awkwardly at the bruise over his kidney, but all he could really tell was that poking it hurt. He'd known pretty much as soon as Williamson had hit him that the single blow hadn't been enough to leave him pissing blood, and that was really the only important metric in the circumstances. c readjusted his clothing, resisted the urge to poke at the neatly-taped cut on his head--it was fresh, Don must have redone it before waking him--and went out to the card tables.

He ate standing up, flipping through the first few pages of the parameters. Another robbery, like they mostly were, but Williamson was changing things up again. Not surprising, though it would mean more work for c. He'd introduced a lot of factors that would be tricky to quantify, let alone predict. If he seriously wanted probability calculations on skirt lengths for the female accomplices, this was going to take forever. Still, it was a good, novel MO, highly unlikely to be connected back to any of the others. c had been the one who'd explained to Williamson how important it was to keep changing, keep moving, to avoid patterns to avoid getting caught. Williamson seemed to listen to him on that, at least.

Williamson...

c turned and stared down at the sleeping bags. It had to be obvious that they'd both been sleeping there, and even though c had been fully clothed, it seemed to him that it would read as something other than what it was, to Williamson or any of his men. And yesterday--no, the day before--they hadn't been fully clothed at all. Don had climbed out of the sleeping bags wearing only his jockeys, and for a moment he'd actually been straddling c, as he bent to squeeze c's shoulder. Then he'd walked away, and the light from the doorway had flashed on a dark bruise on his inner thigh.

So Williamson and the others would be thinking that Mac and Know-Nothing were fucking. Had Williamson ordered it? Was Don trying to make it look that way? But then Williamson would look approving, not amused, and he would have asked c pointed questions to confirm whatever he thought was going on.

He acted amused, though, and that meant--they would be allowed? c tried to work out whether this would make it more or less likely that Williamson would order Don to rape him, but there wasn't sufficient useable data. Williamson's threats had always been vague--and always only threats--up to the time Don arrived: but Williamson had now threatened him with Don specifically, and the other day in the garage might well have been a kind of trial run.

But if it was, it had certainly reassured c at least as much as it could possibly have reassured Williamson: he knew now what it would be like, if Williamson ordered Don to do anything to him. It would be like that, all over again. Don would look him in the eye, wait until he was ready, hurt him as little as possible. c would be a person to Don, before and after and during, and it would be something between them that Williamson only stood aside and ordered. It was hardly frightening at all, if he thought of it like that, but Williamson would find a way to make it terrible--and Don would hate it, he realized. Don didn't seem like the type to enjoy rape any more than he'd enjoyed beating c while he was bound.

Well, and maybe c couldn't actually prevent that, but he could head it off in a way. If they could do it here first, privately, on their own terms, wouldn't that be better? If Williamson couldn't order them to do anything they hadn't already done, it would spike his guns a little. He might not even bother then. c would be confirmed as the faggot Williamson occasionally accused him of being (and what would that make Williamson's Mac? Nothing the others didn't already think he was, so there was little enough risk to consider there) but he didn't think he'd mind that much. There wasn't anything wrong with being gay, after all. He knew that.

And he was, wasn't he? Situationally, at least? Wasn't that what it meant, when he'd rather lie beside Don and watch him sleep than imagine some girl in a picture naked? He closed his eyes for just a second, experimentally imagining Don naked--not a great imaginative leap at all, all that skin and warmth and smiling brown eyes, crouching over him--and, oh, yes. He opened his eyes, catching himself against the table as he staggered, blood rushing to his dick. Yes. He was very definitely gay. At least in this room. And there was nothing wrong with that: even Williamson didn't seem to mind.

c glanced at the sleeping bags again.

He'd just have to hope that Don didn't mind either, or this could get tricky. He was at least unlikely to be violently disturbed by the idea--not only was he generally reluctant to harm c, but sleeping together, especially as unclothed as they'd been at first, seemed like the sort of thing that would be avoided as queer by the kind of guy who'd take serious offense. And Don had seemed attracted to him in some way from the beginning. The day before, Don had seemed to be playing some private stalking game, repeatedly getting as close to c as he could until c repelled him--moving in over and over as if drawn by gravity, some force he couldn't resist.

Well, gravity acted to draw two bodies toward each other, more powerfully at smaller distances. c would move closer, and they'd see what happened next.

It seemed like déjà vu, at first. Don glanced up from his comic book to see Charlie standing at one of his freshly-cleared chalkboards, and he could swear he saw him erasing the exact same thing he'd been erasing the last time Don had looked up.

Don glanced at his watch. It was pushing midnight, and he should really try to get Charlie to get some sleep sooner rather than later, if he wanted either of them to approach a normal circadian rhythm. It'd be useful if only for reducing the likelihood of being caught sleeping when somebody came down here. Charlie didn't need to miss more meals than he already did, and Don didn't need to be caught off guard more than he already was.

Charlie started writing again, and Don shifted sideways for a better angle, setting down his comic book. As he watched, Charlie wrote down exactly the same equation he'd just erased. Don stared at it, trying to spot somewhere that it had changed. Charlie seemed to be staring at it, too, pacing a step to one side and a step to the other, as if it would look different out of the corner of his eye. Then he turned back to the board and scrubbed it out again.

Don started counting. He got to two hundred and forty-seven before Charlie started writing again: exactly the same equation. Don grinned.

"Hey, c."

Charlie shook his head in that "I'm not listening, don't interrupt me" way he had always had. Don could tell him his hair was on fire right now and he'd just keep shaking his head and staring at his chalkboard, or at least he could have done that to Charlie, before. c seemed to pay a little more attention to his surroundings, but then, c had to.

Don closed down that line of thought, thinking instead of how Charlie looked better tonight, his bruises and balance all improved for a day asleep, diving straight into some fresh project Williamson had brought him. Don stood up and started walking toward him, coming at him from behind and to the right on a forty-five degree angle. He hadn't really experimented with angles, before. He stopped a foot from Charlie's shoulder and waited, watching as Charlie erased his work yet again.

"c," he said, practically in Charlie's ear. "Earth to c."

Charlie turned his head and glared at Don over his shoulder. "I'm working."

"No," Don said, reaching out and prying the chalk from Charlie's fingers. Charlie resisted for a couple of seconds and then gave up. "You're writing and erasing the same thing over and over, and you have been for an hour."

"Look," Charlie said, "just because you can't comprehend the subtle refinements--"

Insulting the intelligence of everyone around him. God, it was just like trying to get him to come in for dinner when he was on a tear. "You can't comprehend when you need to give your brain a break. Come over here and sit down with me for five minutes, and then I'll give you your chalk back."

Charlie looked pointedly from Don to the box of chalk on the table, but Don just grabbed him by the shoulder and started pulling, and about four feet away from the board its hold over him seemed to break. He relaxed under Don's hand and walked with him to the sleeping bags, slouching down beside him.

Don leaned against the wall, stretching his legs, and looked over at Charlie sitting with his elbows on knees, head in hands.

"Hey," Don said softly, "how are you feeling, anyway?"

Charlie shrugged, and looked up at him with a half-smile, blinking both eyes as wide as they'd go--still not symmetrical, but closer.

"Better," Charlie said. "I, uh, I do that sleeping thing sometimes, just crash like that. I hope you didn't think I was dead or anything."

Don nodded. Charlie didn't need to know exactly how much time Don had spent sitting by him, watching his sleep for signs of rapid eye movement and assuring himself that if Charlie hadn't had a concussion, he couldn't have lapsed into a coma.

"So, this is how it works, huh?"

He waved toward the table, freshly stocked with all-new sheets of paper covered in numbers, and the chalkboards, wiped clear.

"Williamson brings you some stuff and bang, you do math magic?"

"Magic, ha," Charlie repeated, but he was still smiling a little bit. "Yeah, something like that. It used to be--"

He hesitated, glancing over at Don, and Don leaned forward and looked curious but non-threatening with all his might. Charlie looked away, folding tighter into himself, but he kept talking.

"Williamson and I used to--it was like working together, almost like--almost a partnership. I mean, he was the boss and I was the one who got held at gunpoint and locked in all the time, but mostly he didn't--it wasn't like this, as much."

Don nodded, though Charlie was looking away from Don, and probably couldn't see it. Charlie just kept going.

"We--the first job we did, I did with him, that was--I knew how to do that. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew. And then there were other jobs, and I would--I would tell him what we should--what his guys should do, and he would listen, or tell me something else to do, but then we--we had this one job and--it made sense to design everything to avoid the possibility of casualties. You kill people, it's worse, they look harder for you, you leave more forensic evidence."

The Cincinnati job, Don thought. A security guard shot in the head on the way out, by a man Williamson's size. He thought he could see where this was going, and folded that thought down inside, where it wouldn't show on his face, wouldn't stop Charlie from talking.

"But Williamson thought I was being too careful, thought I was trying to control--he wanted to make a point, so he--he killed a man, told me all about it after, and that's when I--I started--I yelled at him."

There was a half-hysterical bubble of laughter behind the word, disbelieving. Don scooted around so he was facing Charlie, and he could see Charlie was holding his elbow again.

"That's when he did this?" Don asked, reaching out and setting his hand over Charlie's, squeezing gently.

Charlie raised his head, met Don's eyes and then nodded, just once. "Dislocated. Left it like that for--I don't know how long, I never knew how long anything lasted. It felt like a long time."

Don winced at that, and let Charlie see it this time. He slid his hand down to Charlie's wrist, pushing his sleeve up, and Charlie let his hand fall away so that Don could cup the bare elbow in his hands.

"Does it hurt now?"

About a month since the original injury and reduction of the joint, and Charlie didn't seem to have any nerve damage in his left arm, at least.

Charlie shrugged. "A little. It's not a big deal."

Bracing the elbow in one hand, Don took Charlie's wrist in the other, watching Charlie's face for pain as he tested his range of motion. It wasn't horribly diminished--he seemed to use the arm pretty much normally--but it was clear that he'd sustained damage, now that Don thought to check. A month in, he wouldn't even be finished healing yet, really.

"It'll keep getting better," Don said firmly.

Charlie nodded, but his eyes were back on his blackboard, flickering from place to place as if he was reading something he hadn't written yet. Don squeezed his wrist and then let go, and somehow that made Charlie look at him, suddenly intent.

"What about you?" Charlie asked. "How's a nice guy like you wind up in a place like this?"

It was Don's turn to look away, biting his tongue against the impulse to say, I came looking for you. Not yet. Charlie was starting to trust him, but it was still far too soon to lay the truth on him and expect him to keep the secret.

"It's a living," he said lightly instead, looking from one blank chalkboard to the next, remembering faintly and distantly the chalkboards in the garage, and in Charlie's office.

"And it's not--" he looked back at Charlie, to find him watching carefully. "It's not the kind of job you can walk away from if you don't like it, you know?"

Charlie nodded his understanding, and he touched Don's shoulder lightly, with a quiet smile like forgiveness on his battered face. Don sat still, smiling back at Charlie, letting the moment stretch until it was almost too much to bear. He looked away and picked up a comic book, not quite shrugging off Charlie's touch.

"So, come on, isn't it time for your daily dose of improbable physics and masked heroes?"

Charlie's hand tightened on his shoulder, and when Don looked back Charlie was a thousand miles away, staring into nothing, his lips moving slightly like he was communing with the math gods. Softly, voice level, so he wouldn't break the trance, Don said, "Don't tell me you just had a breakthrough based on Batman and Robin."

"Improbability, actually," Charlie replied, still not looking at Don but starting to smile. "Oh--of course, I--"

Don smiled back--he didn't know how many times in his life he'd seen a lightbulb go on above Charlie's head, but it was still fun to watch--and then Charlie was looking straight at Don, smiling at him, moving toward him. Don raised his arm to catch Charlie in a hug, smack him on the back, except the angle wasn't quite right and before he knew what was happening Charlie's mouth struck his, and while Don froze in total shock Charlie's lips were soft and slightly parted, there and then gone. Charlie pushed up off his shoulder and took two quick strides to the card table, grabbed some chalk and started writing as soon as he reached the board.

Don opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, raised a hand to his face and rubbed at his lips. Charlie hadn't just--no, Charlie had. He'd been--excited, and thinking of something else, but he'd definitely--

Charlie had kissed him. Kissed him. And, it belatedly occurred to Don, he hadn't actually told Charlie he shouldn't.

He looked up at Charlie, who was scribbling so furiously he was actually raising a little cloud of chalk dust. That meant it was shitty chalk, Don thought, in a numb, bemused sort of way--he should try to get Charlie some better chalk--no, he should get Charlie out of here, home to his own chalk. Don cleared his throat and said, "Hey, c."

Charlie kept on writing furiously, chalk tapping, sliding, hissing against the board, and he moved sideways to start on a fresh board, scribbling notes and a diagram.

"c," he repeated, louder, and this time Charlie waved his free hand in Don's direction, no, busy, go away.

That meant he knew Don was there and was ignoring him on purpose, and Don hesitated. If he actually wanted to talk to Charlie now, he'd have to physically get up and go over there, peel him away from his chalkboard and force him to listen--and he might be staying over there as much from embarrassment as because he was working on a serious breakthrough. Although from the speed of writing, he also seemed to have figured out something important. He probably hadn't meant anything by it. He'd just been excited and now he was hoping Don would just forget all about it and leave him alone to work.

And Charlie's work was important, much more important than proving some kind of point. It was fucked up and weird, but Don could deal with fucked up and weird for a few hours easier than he could deal with Charlie having his elbow dislocated again because he was slow off the mark. And sitting here and shutting up was a hell of a lot easier than being made to dislocate Charlie's elbow tomorrow.

And, truth be told, he didn't really want to get that close to Charlie again right this second, just in case Charlie--c, who didn't know Don, who'd never seen a girl before--got the wrong idea or something. That would make it worse. No, he would let Charlie work for now, and in the morning, when they'd both rested and gotten some distance from it, Don would just--set him straight. He'd be calm, Charlie would be sheepish, this whole thing would blow over, and later, when they were out of here and Charlie had his memory back, Don would probably tease him about it.

Or maybe they would never, ever speak of it again. That would be all right, too. Don picked up a comic book and set himself to think about anything that wasn't Charlie for a little while.

c lay still, watching Don sleep again. It was almost like having a hobby, he thought, watching Don while he slept. When Don was awake, it was almost like having a friend, although what with one thing and another 'friend' was probably not the most precise possible term for it.

For now though, Don was sleeping and c was watching. He'd just woken up himself, and he'd left the work light shining on blackboard six when he lay down to sleep, for just this purpose. Don was lying on his side--his left side, lucky bastard, while c still couldn't even quite manage to sleep on his back--with his head pillowed on his bottom arm and his back to the wall. His gun lay on the floor with its holster. c could reach it as easily as Don could from where they lay, but c had no interest in reaching for it. Don had been right, for one thing, a gun would do him no good until he had a plan. And anyway, Don had told him not to do that again.

He hadn't told c not to kiss him again, which c chose to consider promising. His lips had touched Don's for perhaps as long as his fingers had touched Don's gun a few nights before, but Don had only frozen in surprise, not knocked him to the floor. If Don had been really angry about it, he'd have hit first, not frozen. If he froze it meant he was more surprised than anything else, and surprise was something c could work with.

c touched his own lips, remembering that brief contact as he stared at Don's mouth, softened now in sleep. He scooted closer to Don, holding his breath, but Don slept on, undisturbed by his presence. c reached out one hand, letting it hover over Don's arm and then settle painfully slowly onto his sleeve, feeling the warmth of his skin through the soft fabric. He dared to inch closer. His head was entirely off the pillow now, his cheek nearly touching the point of Don's elbow. He slid his hand slightly up Don's arm and felt the tensing of muscle as Don moved. c froze, eyes wide, waiting to be caught.

Don shifted in sleep, raising his arm and throwing it over c, tugging him closer, and c closed his eyes and curled in, the top of his head against Don's chest, Don's arm heavy and lax over his side. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was surprised Don didn't hear it, and the vague arousal of waking up warm and close to Don was coalescing rapidly into an actual hard-on. c shifted his hips a little, not wanting to actually take his hand from Don's arm to adjust himself, and then let his hand slip down to Don's stomach. There was more heat there, or maybe it was himself that was hotter at the muscular feel of Don's body under his hand, rising and falling as he breathed.

c turned his face up against Don's chest, shifting his hips closer, his knee against Don's thigh. He was breathing Don now, the smell of him filling c's nose, and the hot, thick air in the tight space between their bodies made his head swim. His hand was moving down Don's belly before he knew he meant to do it, rucking up his shirt to touch bare skin, hair crinkling under his fingers as they trailed to the top of Don's jeans, the metal of the button skin-warm under his thumb.

Don gasped, and c felt it against his face, under his hand, felt Don awake and in motion--Don's hands on him and over him, pushing him onto his back--his dick throbbed, yes, yes, please, yes--and Don's weight moved over him, Don's breath hot on his face for an instant--

And then Don was scrambling away, flinging the sleeping bag back and surging to his feet, leaving c lying cold and exposed as Don stood, panting harshly, one hand out as if to stop c from following him, fingers spread wide. Don was silhouetted against the work light, but c could make out the wideness of his staring eyes.

Don said, "No," not loudly, but so forcefully that c felt pressed back against the concrete by it.

He swallowed, resisting the urge to cover himself--his dick was still hard, his own breath coming as short as Don's--and said the first thing that came to mind.

"Why not?"

Don opened and closed his mouth repeatedly before he finally said, nearly as forcefully as before, "Because I don't want to."

c tamped down the many, many scathing things he might have said on the subject of doing things one didn't want to do, and nodded slowly, calmly. Don didn't want to. Well.

"All right," he said, pleased that his voice sounded steady, maybe ever so faintly amused. His hard-on was easing, his heart rate slowing. He was conscious of the ache of the bruise on his back, but he couldn't turn away from Don to avoid it. He just squirmed a little as he settled back more comfortably against the pillow and tucked one arm behind his head. The cool air striking his skin told him that the motion had drawn his shirt up above the top of his jeans an instant before Don's eyes darted down.

Don shifted back a step, seeming uneasy, but his voice was firm as he said, "All right. So that's it."

c smiled and shook his head. "No, it's not, but I accept your premise. You don't want to. I do want to. We have two opposite propositions before us which must be reconciled, like P and--"

"Do not start talking to me about P vs. NP," Don snarled, suddenly, startlingly fierce, and c blinked.

"What do you know about P vs. NP?" he asked, pushing up on his elbow.

Don had seemed quite genuinely ignorant of advanced mathematics. Had Williamson planted a ringer? Did he suspect c of botching the mathematics in some way? Don did spend a lot of time staring at the chalkboards, but it wasn't as if there were anything else to stare at, and c had never seen any evidence of Don doing any sort of math himself.

Don seemed taken aback by the question, as if he hadn't expected c to find it odd that he was familiar with one of the great unsolved problems of mathematics. But this hesitation was brief, and then he said,

"Nothing, except that it's got nothing to do with real life. This is not math, c, you do not get to put me on your chalkboard and calculate how you can get your way with me. I said no, and I meant it."

c was briefly distracted by the idea of Don, if not on, then up against, a chalkboard. He licked his lips, looking up at him, and then said, in a careful, quiet voice, "Are you going to hit me?"

"Am I--"

Don cut off his first answer and ran a hand through his hair, turning his face away, casting his profile against the light. c reminded himself to keep breathing.

"No," Don said, in a low, soft, weary voice. "God, no, c, I'm not going to hit you, I just--"

"Okay," c said, and he could feel himself wavering, almost. But his reasoning was sound. He needed to do this, they needed to do this, before the issue was forced. He didn't think now was the time to present the logic of the situation to Don, but that didn't mean the logic didn't remain compelling; and he knew what he wanted, and he could safely ask for it, this once, in this room, with this man.

"If you're not going to hit me, then I'm going to keep asking."

Don stared at him in silence, and c stared back, waiting. Now would be the time, if Don were really seriously determined to stop him, when Don would walk over and hit him, hard. Just once, probably, somewhere he wasn't already hurt, with a closed fist rather than a booted foot, but he would do it, and it would make things much more difficult.

Don rubbed a hand over his face and then said, "Not while I'm fucking sleeping, you're not."

He crossed the space between them and bent low over c, and their eyes met as c tensed in anticipation of the blow. Don's mouth went hard, and he shook his head the slightest fraction, holding c's gaze as he grabbed his gun and walkie-talkie and the sleeping bag he'd knocked aside. He turned away, walking beyond the cot, and c lay motionless, listening to the sound of Don bedding down by the door.

After a while, c scooted into the space where Don had been lying, pushing the pillow aside and curling down into the sleeping bag as he pulled the other half over himself. The warmth and scent of Don still clung to the soft flannel, and c closed his eyes and breathed it in as his eyes watered and his body was wracked with shivers. Don hadn't hit him. He didn't know why not, but he had to think it was a good sign.

Because I'm your brother, that's why not.

Don had been stupidly desperate to drink his coffee that morning, burned his mouth straight back to his throat and nearly gagged scalding coffee all over himself. His tongue and the roof of his mouth felt raw, but at least the discomfort reminded him not to keep mouthing the words, over and over, as he had while he lay in the half-dark by the door for hours before the coffee showed up. The words rattled in his skull instead. I'm your brother. I'm your brother. I'm your brother, that's why.

Charlie was in the shower, and Don was leaning against the door, carefully not looking at himself in the slowly-fogging mirror. He was more uncomfortably conscious than ever that Charlie was naked on the other side of the curtain. He couldn't avoid hearing the slick-skin sounds of him washing, and his brain kept skipping away to think of his own last shower and wondering whether--but Charlie wouldn't, would he? Where Don could hear him? And he--

It was sickening, and it was sick--I'm your brother, I'm your brother, I'm your brother--but that was just it. Charlie was sick, whether brain damaged or psychologically scarred, and this was a symptom. That was all it was, just a sign that Charlie had been hurt, and if it made Don uncomfortable, that wasn't any more Charlie's fault than Don's second case of chicken pox.

Though as he recalled, he'd blamed Charlie for that at the time. He'd been twelve. It had seemed reasonable.

He couldn't think of any way to stop Charlie from thinking about it now that he'd started--he couldn't even think of a way to stop himself from thinking of it, and God knew he'd be happy to. It was partly the problem of thinking of a negative: Don't think about how your brother wants to fuck you, yeah, great, that was worse than not thinking of pink elephants and what oranges smelled like and whatever else they'd been told not to think about back in Intro Psych.

Mostly, though, it was just that they were together twenty-three hours of every day in a room with no windows. There were exactly two distractions available: math and comic books, and apparently sitting down together to stare at spandex-wearing superheroes was not helping matters, so Don was officially tapped out. Hell, if he'd been locked in with anybody but Charlie, they'd probably be looking pretty good right now--and if he was honest with himself, there had been that instant this morning, when he'd been half awake and felt somebody's hand on his skin. Before he'd woken up enough to know it was Charlie, it had felt better than anything had in a long damn time.

But it was Charlie, of course, and he'd only reacted that way because he hadn't known--and Charlie was only behaving this way because, awake or asleep, he didn't know. Tempting as it was to tell him now and make him stop, this was the worst possible time to try it. Charlie was wildly unlikely to believe him, for one thing, and even if he did, Williamson was bound to notice Charlie suddenly behaving differently toward him. He'd find out why, he'd find out exactly who Don Eppes was if he didn't know already, and then Don would be dead, or maybe just taken away from Charlie. Either way he'd be helpless to help Charlie while Williamson did what he pleased.

The shower turned off, finally, and Don shut his eyes just in case Charlie had something in mind--but when he grabbed the towel and held it over the curtain rod, Charlie took it from his hand just as quickly as he had the last few days, and he didn't step outside until he had his boxers and t-shirt on.

Don stuck close to the door, watching Charlie from the corner of his eye. He seemed to be behaving normally, and Don relaxed a little as Charlie dressed. Maybe being upstairs, nearer the others, was working to Don's advantage, encouraging Charlie to keep his mouth shut.

Charlie started brushing his teeth, swiping at the mirror with his left hand, and Don let himself think ahead to the morning's parade past Williamson's thugs and another long day confined with Charlie. He was taken completely off-guard when Charlie said casually, "You have a pretty fantastic ass, you know."

Don froze, once again feeling weirdly as if Charlie had just drawn a gun on him. Keeping his face blank, he met Charlie's eyes in the mirror with what ought to have been a quelling look, though Charlie went on smiling slightly. The swelling around his eye was going down, though the bruising was still spectacularly multi-colored and the gash still stood out, a black line of scabbing in the bruises. Charlie's hair looked longer, weighed down with water against his forehead and the back of his neck. His mouth was covered in white foam. He raised his toothbrush slightly, flashing his teeth, and said "You wear your jeans that tight, somebody was bound to notice."

Don gritted his teeth, closing the small distance between himself and Charlie and jostling him a little against the sink as he grabbed the toothbrush from Charlie's hand.

"Okay," Don said flatly, "that's enough, you're done. We're not talking about this."

Charlie just smiled wider and pressed back against Don as he bent to spit. Don glared at the back of his head and stepped quickly away, rinsing the toothbrush under the tub tap. He shoved the clean toothbrush into his pocket and grabbed Charlie by the arm. Charlie prudently grabbed his own dirty clothes, and Don yanked the door open and propelled him through it.

Charlie stumbled and Don held him up, marching him quickly through the house, for once barely noticing the presence of the other guys. Sam fell in behind Don as they headed down the basement stairs, and when Don had shoved Charlie inside and slammed the door shut behind them, he heard them locked in. More than he ever had been before, Don was acutely aware that he was just as trapped as Charlie was behind that door.

He realized he was still holding Charlie's arm and let go, taking a couple of quick steps away. The cot was still standing on end; he should put it back so Charlie could use it. Charlie wouldn't think to do it if Don left it there.

He could hear Charlie standing still behind him, breathing a little quickly. Waiting. Don cleared his throat and spoke without turning.

"I want you to quit it, c. I'm asking you to quit it."

"Okay," Charlie said, too easily, and Don closed his eyes and bit back a groan.

He turned around warily and said, "By 'okay,' you mean that you acknowledge that I'm saying that but you don't agree to it, don't you?"

Charlie grinned. "You're a quick learner."

He didn't feel quick. He felt tired of this, queasy and edgy, as raw as his mouth. He didn't know how long he could cope with this, and he didn't want to think about what he might do when he couldn't cope anymore. This wasn't right, and he didn't know how Charlie could keep mathematics and not keep that.

"So either I have to hit you, or you're going to keep this up."

Charlie nodded briskly, like that was obvious.

Don sighed. Charlie was sick. It wasn't Charlie's fault.

"That's kind of a shitty thing to do, c."

"Yeah," Charlie said, "well, so is beating somebody whose hands are cuffed behind his back, huh?"

Beyond pulling a gun on him; this time he felt like Charlie had actually hit him. Don kept very still, steadying himself, controlling his expression down to nothingness. Charlie's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open--he could see he'd scored with that one--and Don reminded himself that hitting Charlie was not the answer to this. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't shut Charlie up.

He turned away sharply, digging through his duffle until he fished out the handcuffs. He moved fast, grabbing Charlie's wrist and snapping a cuff on, and Charlie flinched hard, yanking his other hand back so that Don had to reach for it and haul it in to fasten the cuffs, binding his hands before him. Charlie stared up at him, wide-eyed and pale under his stubble, and Don gritted his teeth and turned away again. He grabbed Charlie's razor and the shaving cream and then turned back, pressing them into Charlie's hands. Charlie took them, but didn't move, staring up at Don fearfully, making Don feel sicker than ever.

"Don," Charlie whispered, "I'm sorry."

He swallowed hard against remorse and bile, and gritted out, "You shouldn't be."

Charlie stood very still, and Don said more loudly, "I'm not going to hurt you. I'll take those off if you don't want to shave, but I'm not going to do it for you anymore."

Charlie's hands clenched tight on his shaving stuff, and curled in toward his chest. His eyes shut tight and his shoulders hunched. He nodded shallowly and turned away, walking toward the bathroom with small, silent steps. Don watched him for a couple of ragged breaths and then sank down to sit on the cool floor, his head in his hands. He was fucking this up badly, but if there was a right way to handle the situation, he didn't know it.

He listened to the running water and occasional clattering of Charlie shaving, dropping things, clumsily picking them up with his bound hands. Speaking of shitty things to do. Fuck.

Don pushed up to his feet, grabbed the handcuff key and headed over to the bathroom, but Charlie was already splashing water awkwardly on his face. He was nicked in a couple of spots, but at least he was shaved. Charlie didn't say a word, but when he held his hands out to Don they were shaking. Don wanted to hold them, steady them, give his brother a minute's comfort, but that was what had gotten him into this position in the first place, thinking Charlie would know affection from a come-on. He held each of Charlie's wrists just long enough to unlock the cuffs, then stepped clear of the door so Charlie could get to his chalkboards, tucking the handcuffs into his pocket as he did.

Charlie didn't bolt, though, leaning against the sink like he wanted to look small.

"I didn't mean it like that," Charlie said, low but nearly steady. "I just meant--optimally, neither of us would have to do shitty things. But you had to. And I have to."

Don opened his mouth, but he couldn't think of an argument for that. He shook his head and turned away.

Exhaustion hit c like a hammer blow as he stood at the tables, searching for the page with observations on traffic patterns in the vicinity of the target. The side of his head started throbbing all of a sudden, and he staggered a little under the suddenly unbearable weight of his own body. He caught himself on the table, and looked for Don, only to find him lying down by the door, wrapped in his sleeping bag. His holster was lying near his head, empty, and c knew that if he ventured closer he'd see Don's gun tucked safely and distrustfully between his shoulder and his throat.

He wouldn't venture any closer, though. Don was awake, watching him with dark, intent eyes. c nodded a little bit--he tried to smile, but his mouth just twitched awkwardly, and he didn't think the motion qualified. c tore his gaze from Don's and looked to his own sleeping bag, only then noticing that Don had set the cot back down. c's sleeping bag was spread out on top of it--folded in half, but not zipped--and there was a pillow at the end near the door, so he could have his back to the wall while lying on his right side. It would leave less than a meter between his head and Don's. He would be able to hear Don breathing, even if Don wouldn't let him lie nearer than that.

c nodded again, to nothing and no one in particular, straightened up and went to the light switch. He heard Don tensing at his feet, but merely leaned over him and shut off the overhead lights, leaving himself the work light to navigate by. When he got to his cot, he stared, stupefied, at the obstacle in his path. Lying on top of the sleeping bag was one of Don's comic books--not only one c hadn't read yet, but number 78 of a series in which he had last read number 77.

He glanced toward Don, now an indistinct shape in the shadows, and then back down at the cot, neatly made up for him, taking his comfort into consideration. Don wasn't conceding--not by a long shot--but he wasn't angry, either, or whatever cold, silent thing he'd been all day.

c picked up the comic book carefully--Don always handled them gently--flipped back the top layer of the sleeping bag and sat down on the cot. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't think of the words. Thank you, he thought, would be as inadequate as I'm sorry.

He opened the book, instead, though it was nearly too dim where he sat to make out the brightly colored pictures, and his eyes wouldn't focus well enough to take in the words. He turned the pages idly, knowing Don would hear, and then set the book down well underneath the frame of the cot, where he wouldn't seem to be rejecting it, before he lay down. He meant to listen for the sound of Don's breathing, but he was asleep before the sound of his own sleeping bag settling over him died away.

c kept quiet all through showering and brushing his teeth. When they were locked into the basement room, Don pulled out the handcuffs and said, "You want to shave?"

c hesitated a moment, meeting Don's steady gaze. Don was standing his ground on this, then. c's face itched, and he knew he had nothing to fear from Don, even if he couldn't stop his hands shaking once the handcuffs went on.

"Yeah," c said, offering his wrists, and Don nodded and cuffed him, briskly but without rushing.

c didn't think about anything but shaving as he shaved, working around yesterday's cuts and trying to ignore the weight of the chilly metal on his wrists. His own shivering was harder to ignore, but he went slowly and didn't drop anything this morning. He could hear Don walking around outside the bathroom, a welcome change from yesterday's terrifyingly absolute silence.

When he was done he stepped outside the bathroom, and Don came over quickly to take the cuffs off him. c watched Don's face as he worked the key, gathering his courage. When the cuffs were safely back in Don's pocket, Don met his eyes, and c forced a wobbly smile and said, "I, uh. I still want to have sex with you. Just so you know."

He thought he saw a flicker of something like relief in Don's eyes, but then Don was scowling at him.

"Well, I still don't, so there you go."

c nodded. "There's not really any harm in me asking, then, is there? I'll ask, you'll say no, maybe I'll argue with you about how you're repressing your feelings. It's something to do for two minutes."

Don raised an eyebrow and then glanced at his watch. "Two minutes is all you're looking for, huh?"

c couldn't help it. He laughed, right out loud, and the sound of it was so unfamiliar it even startled him. Don smiled.

"I'll take what I can get," c said, feeling giddy.

He'd made Don smile, after everything. Don liked him, and the way Don looked at him--there was something there. This had to be possible. In all this irreducible risk, there had to be some chance of reward.

"Yeah," Don said, "Well, what you can get right now is back to work."

c nodded obediently and went over to the table. After a moment spent casting about for the previous night's train of thought, he picked up the information on traffic patterns. But for the rest of the morning, the memory of Don's smile would sometimes break in on his concentration, and he'd find himself grinning helplessly at his calculations.

It hadn't even taken a whole day for Don to start missing Charlie across the stupidly small distance of the basement room. The feeling quickly went beyond altruism--though he did still want to make it better every time he saw Charlie shiver or freeze, and he'd given up on doing much of anything other than watching Charlie now. It was more than that. He wanted to touch Charlie--just touch him, not in a bad way, not like that--for his own sake.

It was weird not to touch Charlie--they'd always communicated as much by squeezed shoulders and gentle punches as anything else. You had to touch Charlie to be sure you had his attention, most of the time. And the rest of the time--God, it wasn't like it was weird. It was a normal human impulse, touching people you loved. They were brothers. Charlie didn't know that, so Charlie had drawn the wrong conclusion from Don touching him, but--well, he could explain that much, couldn't he? Even if he couldn't explain why the touches were innocent, he could tell Charlie that they were, maybe draw some kind of treaty line or something.

And not touching had to be half Charlie's problem anyway. He'd spent the last hundred and thirty-some days alone in a room with no one to touch and no one touching him except to hurt him. If that made Charlie a hundred thirty times as lonely as a single day not touching Charlie was making Don, then it was no wonder he wanted every kind of touch he could think of all at once to make up for the lack.

Charlie was at the table, shuffling through papers, when Don pushed to his feet and said, softly enough not to bug him if he was really busy, "Hey."

Charlie literally dropped everything and looked up, and it was kind of alarming to have Charlie tune in to him so instantly and entirely. Don forgot for a second what he'd been about to say, and Charlie smiled slowly as he noticed that.

"Hm?"

"I--"

He'd been going to tell Charlie about wire-cage monkeys and how he was suffering from a documented form of psychological privation, but instead Don just said, "I don't mind touching you."

Charlie blinked. "Um... Thank you?"

Don rolled his eyes. "I mean--look, I just don't swing the right way for the rest of it, but I don't mind touching you, and I know I'm probably the only person you know who touches you more than he hits you. So you're out of luck for the other thing, but--"

Charlie was smiling again, almost smugly--maybe he thought he was getting a foot in the door, and if he tried anything right now Don was going to give serious thought to just hitting him and getting it over with. Charlie tilted his head, eyeing Don thoughtfully.

"So I could say 'I need a hug,' and you would hug me?"

Don ran a hand through his hair. Trust Charlie to still make it sound weird. Somehow Don doubted talking about baby monkeys would have helped.

"Yeah, something like that."

"Okay," Charlie said, looking at him expectantly.

Don stood still, looking back and waiting, until Charlie's self-assured smile slipped a fraction.

"I need a hug?" Charlie's lips were still curled up but his voice was almost plaintive.

Don crossed the space between them quickly--from the door to the chalkboard, just like he'd wanted to do that very first minute and most of the ones since. He wrapped his arms around Charlie and hugged him tight. Don felt Charlie freeze and started to back off--fuck, if he couldn't stand lying in a zipped sleeping bag, being bear-hugged wasn't going to feel too reassuring--but then Charlie's hand settled tentatively on his back. It was Don's turn to hold perfectly still. Charlie's arms slowly circled him and then tightened, and Charlie was holding on right back.

Don thought he should probably let go at some point, or he was going to give Charlie all the wrong ideas all over again. But it felt so right, hugging Charlie, being close to him, Charlie hugging him right back with the fierce, unexpected strength of his skinny arms. Don turned his head a little, just enough that his cheek brushed the softness of Charlie's hair, and then he did force himself to let go, stepping back quickly.

He met Charlie's eyes, not at all sure what to say. Charlie was hugging himself, like once his arms got the idea they didn't want to stop. He tilted his head and smiled, and said, "I do still want to have sex with you, though."

Don had to smile. It was almost as funny as it was disturbing, how much this was like Charlie's great Send Me To Princeton campaign when he was twelve, and every day Charlie dared to argue with him was another day Charlie learned to trust him.

"Yeah," Don said. "Well, so do lots of people."

Don was sitting by the door, drinking his coffee and blinking under the overhead lights, which had been on for a couple of minutes now. c, who'd been up for hours before the appearance of breakfast, stood by chalkboard six and sipped his own coffee, watching Don. The right word for the phenomena he'd been observing came to him all at once--in a flash just like any other breakthrough--and c only wondered if he shouldn't mention it as his mouth opened and the words fell out.

"I love you."

Don's head snapped up and he looked absolutely blank for a few seconds, still blinking, like his eyes hadn't adjusted enough to focus on c three meters away. Then he scrubbed a hand over his hair and his shoulders slumped. He looked down at his coffee but didn't drink any more of it, and said in a quiet, tired voice, "No, you don't. You have Stockholm Syndrome."

c frowned. He tried the word Stockholm a time or two, but all he could come up with was Nobel prizes, and the fact that there wasn't one for Mathematics. But Don said it like he ought to know it, and c hadn't anticipated this sort of counterargument. He was pretty sure he didn't have whatever it was, if it meant he didn't actually love Don, but he didn't want to assert that when he didn't know how Don could disprove it.

"Stockholm Syndrome," Don repeated, and when c looked up he was still staring at his coffee. He sounded oddly defeated, for a man sure of his argument. "It happens when one person has power of life and death over another, and the endangered person feels loyalty and sympathy toward the person who holds power over them. It's a natural self-protective response."

c rolled his eyes. "Well, then you might have a point, if I'd said I love your boss, but I didn't say that. I love--"

"Do not say that again."

Don looked up, looked straight at c, so fierce that c's next argument, the one about how he wasn't actually afraid of Don, died in his throat. Don pressed his lips together, and his glare faded to something a little less paralyzing.

"It won't help your case," he said more quietly, and c nodded.

Don looked away, and c turned back to his boards, flipping the chalk between his fingers. He didn't last long before his eyes slid back to Don, studying the curve of his shoulder, the tight lines of his hands on the coffee mug. "If you'd prefer something less sentimental..."

Don snorted. "I'd prefer you to be quiet."

He took another sip of his coffee and swiped a hand over his face while c stood still, watching, trying to switch his brain back to math from Don. He was more distracting than almost anything.

Don finally looked up and saw him watching. He rolled his eyes and said, "Sure, go ahead. Set yourself up, I'll shoot you down."

c smiled, though he knew he shouldn't, really. He cleared his throat and tried to keep an appropriately straight face as he said, "Well, it's just that you're pretty much the last person on earth, as far as I'm concerned."

Don frowned, though there was a smile lurking in his eyes, like he thought c was kidding. It was a good smile; c wished he'd earned it.

"Last? You've never even met a woman as far as you know. I'm more like the first. There'll be somebody else, c. Lots of somebodies."

c shrugged and looked away, toward blackboard seven, where he occasionally worked out his own private calculations. It was blank now, but he remembered the numbers.

"First and last aren't mutually exclusive under sufficiently constrained conditions." He glanced toward Don, and found him squinting in his direction. Don didn't get it yet.

"I've calculated my own life expectancy," c explained patiently. "It's not great."

Don flinched at that, eyes going wide, looking much more pole-axed than somebody who'd almost killed him should at the idea of him dying.

"Don, this isn't exactly a line of work that predisposes anybody to dying of old age."

Don set down his coffee on the floor with what seemed like excessive care, and got to his feet. He walked slowly over to c, his steps deliberate, his eyes betraying the same weird intensity he'd shown c in the very first moment they met. Even as he fought the urge to back away from Don's advance, c thought, You do want me, I know you want me, I may be brain-damaged but I'm not blind.

Don stopped less than a foot from c, holding his gaze, and said in a low, steady voice, "Williamson hired me to guard you, c. Not because he thinks you're going to bust out of here armed with chalk and your giant brain. He wants you kept safe."

c blinked, frowning and lowering his gaze to Don's collarbone. It was an interesting point.

"That must mean he thinks people other than himself might try to kill me. I hadn't factored that into my life-expectancy calculation before, I don't think it really impr--"

Don caught his arm in a tight grip, and the words failed in c's mouth as he met Don's eyes again. He resisted the urge to pull away from the restraint, and Don's other hand settled on his shoulder.

"c," Don whispered, and the hair stood up on the back of c's neck. "It is my job to keep you in one piece. I intend to do my job."

c nodded slowly, transfixed, and cautiously raised his own hand to Don's arm. "You take--your job--seriously. I get that."

Don's mouth flattened to a grim line, and c knew it wasn't a job that Don was staring at like his hope of heaven. It wasn't a job that Don was holding on to tightly enough to hurt. c knew the word for what Don was doing here, too, though he had a feeling he wouldn't get too far saying it.

Don nodded and took his hands away, easing back a step and finally dropping his gaze. c turned back to his board and tried to catch his breath. He rolled the chalk on his fingers, listening to the small sounds of Don walking away, though staying always, always, between c and the door, and thought, You don't want to say it, but you fucking well love me too.

Don scrubbed his hands over his face. He wished he couldn't believe they were arguing about this, but it was so Charlie it was killing him.

"Fine," he said. "What if I was--what if I was sick? And if--"

"If we had sex," Charlie filled in. He'd noticed at some point that Don never said it and had started supplying the words, which didn't really help at all.

Don took a deep breath, in and out. "You'd get sick, and I don't want to do that to you."

"Safe sex doesn't mean no sex," Charlie announced confidently, licking his fingers for the last traces of his sandwich. "We'd just have to be careful. Depending on what you had, except that you don't have anything, or you wouldn't say what if."

Don sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, setting down his own half-eaten sandwich on the floor. "Right, but--look, it doesn't even matter why not. I don't want to, I'm not gay." He glanced at Charlie just as he opened his mouth, and rolled his eyes. "Or bisexual, okay? I don't have sex with guys."

Charlie shrugged. "If you haven't, that doesn't necessarily mean you won't. People do weird things when their options are limited, and you don't get out much more than I do."

Don glanced involuntarily up at the door, then scowled at Charlie. "I don't care how little I get out," Don said. "The answer's still no."

Charlie tilted his head. "It doesn't have to be--I mean, if you don't want to perform some particular act--"

Don squeezed his eyes shut, far too late to stop the barrage of mental images. Charlie would insist on negotiating about oral sex or anal or something else and Don couldn't help seeing it. Charlie naked, Charlie standing over him, Charlie on his--

He regretted the half of his sandwich he had eaten, and clenched both fists against his thighs. He couldn't move. He would not hit Charlie.

"It's not--" Don gritted out. "No."

c blinked in the dimness, half awake. He only had to turn his head a little to find Don, sitting in the corner between blackboard five and blackboard six, reading a comic book under the work light. c rubbed his eyes and glanced above Don's head at the boards, remembering the stalled line of reasoning that had compelled him to lie down and, as Don would say, give his brain a break. No immediate avenues for progress leapt to mind; his mind, in fact, didn't leap much of anywhere. He was warm and comfortable, lying on his cot, wrapped in his sleeping bag.

He must have moved, because Don looked up at him, and nodded slightly when he met c's eyes.

"What time is it?" c murmured, squirming around, trying to stretch without sticking any body parts outside his sleeping bag.

Don squinted at his watch. "Four forty-seven. In the afternoon."

c nodded and stayed where he was, raising his left hand to probe along the healing cut beside his eye. The scab had come off in the shower today, and the skin beneath was closed up, a dark pink line more than a centimeter long. Don had winced when he saw it, but c couldn't stop checking it out, the new scar smooth under his fingertips. He made the same stroking motion with his right hand, tucked between his thighs for warmth, and then slid it higher, cupping himself.

"Don," he said, "would you like to have sex with me?"

Don didn't look up from his comic book. "No, c."

c shifted his fingers, squeezing a little. He hadn't jerked off since a while before Williamson brought Don to stay with him, though he didn't know when exactly. He'd gone through a couple of phases when he did it all the time, locked up alone, as much for something to do as because it felt good. The work light shone down on the top of Don's head and his shoulders, lighting him up with the yellow of the incandescent bulb, showing the brown in the darkness of his hair. He was staring intently at the page before him, and as c watched, the tip of Don's tongue emerged to touch the corner of his mouth. c licked his own lip, sweeping his thumb across his dick through his sweatpants in mirror of the motion.

He cleared his throat and said, "Please?"

Don did look up then, and smiled a little as he said, "No, thank you."

c smiled back, warmth pooling in his belly, spreading lower. "You're perfectly welcome."

Don's smile widened, and he shook his head and returned his attention to his comic book.

c kept as still as he could, watching Don, moving his hand minutely as his dick hardened under the touch. He couldn't do much more, with his right arm under him, and after a while he needed to touch himself more than he wanted to keep watching Don. Moving as slowly and quietly as he could, c rolled over, twisting the sleeping bag around himself, kicking to free his feet from their tangle and then to get them covered up. Soon enough he was lying on his left side, his head gingerly resting on the pillow--Don's pillow. His face was to the wall and his right hand was free.

He closed his eyes, listening for any sound behind him, waiting until he heard the usual rustling of Don's comic book pages. Then c slid his hand down into his pants, spreading his fingers wide, letting his palm skim over his own hot, taut skin. He kept breathing as evenly and silently as he could through his mouth as he touched himself, but he shuddered at the first brush of fingertips, his breath stopping in his throat, his balls tightening. He wanted to hurry, but he couldn't, not with Don just across the room, four meters behind his back.

c pressed his mouth against the pillow to muffle the sound of his breathing as he stroked himself. He moved slowly, not even closing his hand, just dragging his fingers up and down. He felt too hot under his sleeping bag, sweat breaking out everywhere. He was nearly panting, electric pleasure building in his groin. c ground the side of his face down, waking a twinge of pain from the fresh scar and fading bruises, and it steadied him enough to take his next breath smoothly, sliding his thumb around the head of his cock. His hips jerked at that, and he tightened his hand hard around himself and didn't move, listening to the silence behind him. He didn't even breathe.

c kept still as long as he could, but he didn't last. His dick jerked first, irresistibly seeking friction, and only then did he take another breath. He loosened his grip and stroked himself quickly, once, twice--the dry friction would start to hurt soon if he didn't stop, but he didn't want to stop--and then there was a burst of sound from behind him and c froze.

It was static, he realized, once the first instant of blind panic passed and the sound continued. He pulled his hand out of his pants and turned, propping himself on his right elbow but keeping his hips turned toward the wall, to see the source of the sound: Don's walkie-talkie, probably tuned to an empty channel and turned all the way up. Don was holding it against his right ear. He'd turned so that his right side was nearer to c, his face toward the corner. Don's right wrist shielded his eyes, but c could make out Don's blood-drained knuckles, the tensed muscles of his jaw.

Not watching. Not listening. But not leaving, either, and not making c stop. Letting him have this. c closed his right hand around the wooden edge of the cot, holding on as he watched Don, drinking in the sight of him. He didn't often have a chance to really look at Don anymore, but now there was only an infinitesimal probability of Don catching him at it. He stared, his heart racing and his breath coming short, his cock as hard as ever with Don only a few meters away. c raised his left hand and licked his palm, then slid his hand into his pants.

He couldn't keep himself from gasping as he closed his hand tight around himself and took the first stroke, but it was all right. Don wouldn't hear. c's eyelashes fluttered, but he kept his eyes open, watching Don. He stroked himself roughly, awkwardly, inside his pants and with his wrong hand. Maybe it would feel like this if it were Don's hand on him, if Don turned and looked, stood and came over here, if he leaned over the cot and touched--

He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, closed his hand painfully tight on himself, holding back his orgasm for just a little longer. When he opened his eyes again he only looked at Don in pieces: the curve of his shoulder, he muscle of his forearm standing out, his hair standing in unruly waves, the softness of his throat just under his jaw. c's hand kept moving, dragging it out, so good, so good--and then Don moved.

He turned his head, dropped his wrist a little, peeking at c from the corner of his eye, and c felt his own eyes go wide as Don's did, like looking in a mirror as their gazes met. c's head tipped back and his eyes clenched shut and he was coming hard under his own touch, under Don's eyes, his hips jerking, making the cot thump erratically against the wall as the static kept playing.

He stayed still for a minute, catching his breath, eyes closed and head hanging back. The first thing he noticed was that his fingers hurt--his right hand was going almost numb from clutching the frame of the cot. c let go, and then let himself flop back flat on the cot, his left hand still curled around his dick in the wet heat of his boxers. He was going to have to clean that up in a minute. The static washed over him, steady and ever-present as Don himself, and c kept his eyes closed a while longer, drifting. He could feel himself smiling, and he didn't want to stop.

Don kept still as long as he could, and when he couldn't keep still anymore he jumped to his feet and started to pace, from the chalkboard to the door and back again. He kept his chin tucked, though he switched the radio back to the standard channel and jammed it into his pocket. There was no sound from the direction of Charlie's cot, but Don wasn't going to make the mistake of looking again. His hands were in fists, painfully tight, every muscle vibrating with the need to throw a punch. He kept his arms folded, his knuckles pressed against his biceps, bone grinding slowly, implacably, against tensed muscle.

He walked fast, stiff-legged, and after the first few turns he shut his eyes. There was nothing to see, no obstacle to navigate, and he knew the dimensions of the room like he knew the bounds of his own body. The absence of sight made him more conscious of the quiet of the room--there was just the sound of his own steps, the faint ringing in his ears from his clenched jaw, and the hiss of his own breath. No sound from Charlie.

His stride lengthened and sped until he was nearly running, back and forth in the tiny space, from the wall to the door, the wall to the door, cinder blocks and locks, keeping him in here with Charlie. He must not hit Charlie, must not move one inch closer to Charlie than he already was.

When he heard movement Don forced himself to be still, standing halfway from the door and facing the wall. He forced his hands open, pressing his palms to the cinder blocks between two chalkboards. Behind him he could hear the rustling of Charlie's sleeping bag, and he tried to focus on the cool painted brick under his hands. He flexed his fingers and tried to force the muscles of his arms to release their tension. Don found himself pushing instead, pressing against the wall with his feet braced, like he could just shove his way out of here, straight through brick and earth.

He heard the quiet scuff of Charlie's feet, moving hesitantly toward him. He knew he had to say something before Charlie got into arm's reach, but he hadn't managed to unclench his teeth before Charlie said, "Don?" from about six feet behind him.

Charlie's voice was small, tentative, and Don could almost picture his wide eyes--flashing wider, dark and shining in the half-light--

"Don't," Don snapped. He wasn't even sure whether he was talking to himself or Charlie, but he could hear the sudden silence of Charlie freezing in place behind him, not moving away. On Don's next breath he could smell sex, rising warm off Charlie's skin, and his heart was racing, his fingers curling in against the brick.

"Get away from me, c."

Charlie still didn't move, didn't say a word, but Don could hear him breathing now, low and fast. Don turned his head just a fraction, keeping his eyes closed so there was no danger of seeing Charlie.

"I've already had my hands around your neck once," he said flatly, and that got Charlie moving. Don pressed his forehead hard against the cinder block and listened to Charlie retreating all the way to the bathroom. The water switched on as soon as he got there, covering all other sounds, but Don didn't move. It was easier to control himself if he didn't move at all.

It wasn't like he'd never hit Charlie before he got here--Charlie had hit the height of nine-year-old obnoxiousness just when Don hit the low point of fourteen-year-old impulse control, for starters--but he couldn't remember ever wanting to this badly. He'd never closed his eyes and entertained the vision of pounding on Charlie until he stopped talking, stopped arguing, stopped looking at him like that.

He thought he was imagining it when he heard the bar lift outside the door, just because he so desperately wanted to hear it. When the lock turned, Don bolted toward the door and grabbed his duffle. By the time Williamson pulled the door open Don was standing on the threshold, and he brushed past the boss with barely a glance, running up the stairs two at a time.

There was no one in the kitchen, and Don thought for a ludicrous instant that he should eat, and then he dropped his bag and headed through the doorway to the living room. There were two guys on the couch, Sam and one of the others, but Don barely saw them. He didn't break stride until he reached the front door. He opened the deadbolt, the lock, and the lock on the storm door, and stepped out into fresh, cold, open air.

Don hesitated for an instant on the threshold, staring out into the night, but when he heard someone get off the couch behind him he took off again. He crossed the porch in two quick strides and jumped over the steps, and then he was running flat out, long strides all the way down the lawn to the ditch beside the road and then veering around to the gravel driveway. Open air and space around him, and he was moving at last. He could keep running forever if he wanted to, except that Charlie was back there--so he couldn't go anywhere.

He couldn't bear to take a single step back toward the house. From here it looked so fucking normal, lights golden behind the curtains at the windows, and no one would know to look at it what happened in the basement.

Don turned on his heel, putting his back to the house. He bent and picked up a handful of gravel, cupping the stones in his left hand, picking them out one at a time to shy at the line of trees that marked the edge of the property. The moon and stars and the glow of the house gave enough light to see the occasional strike of a pale stone against a dark trunk, bouncing off into the grass. He kept throwing until he started to feel the cold, fingers going numb and shoulder stiffening, and then he brushed the rock dust off on the seat of his pants. When he turned, Sam was there, standing a little way up the driveway. Don nodded and started back up to the house.

He heard Sam click on a radio. "Never mind, he's coming in."

Don gritted his teeth at that, trying not to show the wince. He'd have been dead as soon as he stepped foot on the road--or Charlie would. Don didn't pause at the door, grabbed his duffle from the kitchen floor and went on to the bathroom as Sam locked up behind them.

He didn't wait for the water to warm up, stepped under the icy spray and washed fast, scrubbing everywhere like he was covered in mud, or blood, or anything he could ever wash off. When the water started getting hot he shut it off, and stepped out shivering. He got dried and dressed and shaved without looking at the mirror. It hadn't fogged up.

There was a pot of soup on the stove, and Don dished some up and wolfed it down, standing right there. He was starving as soon as he put food in his mouth. He rinsed his bowl and spoon when he was done and put them both in the dishwasher, grabbed his duffle and headed down the basement stairs without hesitating. He got to the bottom and was reaching for the door before he thought better of barging back in there to--what? Punch back in? Tell Williamson how much he loved his job? Hit Charlie, because that would solve everything or anything?

Don sank to sit on the stairs, resting his head in his hands. It had been stupid to run like that. He shouldn't have risked Charlie, doing something that obvious, shouldn't have gone so far he couldn't hear what Williamson was doing to Charlie down here. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He pressed his thumbs against his temples, tried to think of something more helpful than that--he heard Terry's voice all of a sudden, as clear as if she'd plunked down on the step beside him, telling him he was burned out and it was a natural response and he needed to cut himself a little slack before he self-destructed. He smiled bleakly at his feet. He was pretty sure he'd already self-destructed; it had just taken a little while for the shockwave to hit.

The door opened and Don straightened up sharply. Williamson was standing astride the threshold, and waved him inside. Don nodded, trying to look stolid and reliable and only interested in doing the job he was, theoretically, getting paid for. He picked up his bag and made to step inside past the boss, but Williamson stopped him there, just inside, with a hand on his shoulder. Don froze at the touch, looking automatically into the room for Charlie. He was standing by one of the chalkboards, holding the chalk stationary against the slate. Only pretending to work, and not pretending very hard, at that.

"Mac, man, I'm sorry," Williamson said, and Don turned his head and stared blankly at Williamson's oddly genial smile.

"I didn't even think of how much time you actually spend on shift with this gig when I was working out your schedule. So you'll get a day off tomorrow. Jimmy'll come down at eight and let you out. Take you into town for the day."

Don felt his mouth open and shut it firmly. He nodded, and didn't bother trying for a smile. Williamson smiled wider, wide enough for both of them, squeezed his shoulder too hard, and shoved him inside. Don stumbled a step and then froze, listening to the door being barred behind him. He stared at Charlie's back, and watched him drop his chalk, watched him press both hands flat against the board and lean his forehead on it, watched him begin to cry in perfect silence, betrayed only by the shaking of his shoulders.

Don took two quick strides into the room.

"c," he said, and all his anger, everything he'd felt but the need to take care of Charlie, was wiped blank by this. He couldn't even grasp--they had until eight tomorrow morning and then what? Williamson had realized who he was and wanted to kill him after all? But why wait, why not do it here and now in front of Charlie for maximum effect? Or else he wanted Don out of the way for a while, private time with the genius...

Charlie probably had a better idea than Don did of what to expect, and Charlie was crying.

"c..."

He got close enough to touch Charlie's arm, his fingers brushing the sleeve of Charlie's sweater at his elbow, and then Charlie was moving away from him, pushing off the board with both hands, shaking his head and swiping a hand across his face.

"I have to work," Charlie said. "I have to--I won't get anything done tomorrow, I'll be useless, I have to work while I can."

He was still crying, his voice shaking, tears pouring down his face, but the hell of it was he was right. Charlie had to work. And if he could only work with Don there--if he felt safer, felt saner, felt anything that helped him get through the next few hours--then Don had to give him that.

"All right," Don said slowly. "All right. I'll go read. You work."

Charlie looked up at that, meeting his eyes. His eyelashes were spiky with tears, his face was wet, he was shaking, and he was staring at Don like he'd never seen him before. Like he didn't want to forget him. Then Charlie nodded and said, "Thank you," and turned to get another piece of chalk from the box.

Don was lying down by the door, but he wasn't even pretending to sleep. All the lights were still on, and every time c looked in his direction, Don was looking back. Watching him.

c never asked him the time. While he worked, he couldn't feel it sliding away from him, but whenever he surfaced he knew it was gone. He didn't want to know how much, how little remained to them, but the question wormed its way to the front of his mind until it blocked all else. He stood still, frustrated, at the corner between boards two and three, looking at neither. If this had happened during a computational phase he could have gotten through it, but the conceptual work was too stop-and-start, required too much complex thought and redirection, and the anticipation of eight o'clock dragged at him, distorting everything. Williamson had given Don to him, and now Williamson was taking him away--for a day? Forever? c didn't think Williamson had ever bothered to lie to him, but he might lie to Mac.

Behind him, Don said, "c, it's three in the morning."

c turned, nodding, trying not to think of how Don knew exactly when to interrupt him. Don was sitting up, looking at him, and c wanted to say I need a hug but he didn't think he could get the words out, remembering Don's tensed shoulders, Don's growled get away from me, Sam's voice on Williamson's radio saying Mac had taken off running.

c shut off the work light, instead, and Don said quietly, "I've got the overheads."

c nodded and stumbled to his cot, wrapping himself in his sleeping bag as the lights went out, and it was so ordinary, so exactly like every day since Don had come here, so entirely unlike everything before. He pressed his face into the pillow and tried not to think of tomorrow, not nearly as unknown as he could wish. Today, really. Five hours and counting. Williamson might kill Don, or just take him away and never bring him back. c thought the probability of either was equal. And almost certainly, whatever reason they had for taking him away, Williamson would want to talk to c about it. To Know-Nothing.

He turned onto his side, his back to the wall, and listened for the sound of Don breathing. It was there, steady and familiar and nearly close enough to touch. c squirmed over onto his stomach, resting his chin on the pillow and straining forward, reaching out with his right hand, fingers splayed, in the direction where Don lay. His hand dangled in the air, touching nothing, getting cold.

c whispered, "Don."

He heard motion, and then he felt it. First there was just a movement of air near his hand, and then Don's fingertips grazed his palm. He reached spasmodically after the contact and Don's hand closed around his, warm and strong.

"Yeah," Don whispered back. "I'm right here."

c held on tight. He lay awake for a long time, and he never felt Don let go.

Don woke up and his hand was cold and empty, resting flat against the concrete. He sat up all at once, reaching for Charlie, and found Charlie's chilled fingers hanging in the air. Moving quietly and carefully, he knelt up and tucked Charlie's hand back under the covers. Charlie stayed limp, unresisting, so either he was asleep or he didn't mind.

Don got to his feet, navigating the room as easily in the dark as he would with a light on after ten days' practice. He found the work light on the corner board unerringly and clicked it on, holding up his watch to check the time.

His stomach clenched and behind him Charlie said quietly, "How long?"

Don turned. Charlie was still lying down, and he'd dragged his sleeping bag in around himself, curling up small on his cot.

"Twenty minutes," Don said, walking back.

He crouched by Charlie's cot, studying his brother's face. This might be his last chance, and he wanted to say it now, say everything. Under the circumstances Charlie might even believe he was telling the truth--but Charlie would almost certainly be questioned today--interrogated, tortured--and Don couldn't expose him to that kind of risk. The bruises around his eye were nearly gone, but the new scar still stood out, a livid reminder of what Williamson would do to Charlie just to teach Don a lesson.

The possibility remained that it was only a day off, that he'd be back here tonight, that both of them would reach the end of this day alive and in one piece.

"c..."

Charlie shook his head, and Don knew better than to try to tell him anything would be all right. Charlie would know better than he did what the odds were of that.

"I know you have to go," Charlie said quietly. "Just--please--say goodbye to me properly."

Don opened his mouth and shut it, staring down at Charlie. There was no smirk now, none of that baby brother determination to get his way. He wasn't reaching for Don, wouldn't pull him in, wouldn't take anything. Don could turn away, walk out, leave him like this and maybe never see him alive again, but have the satisfaction of knowing he hadn't given in. Charlie was asking him now, just asking. Just begging.

Don tipped forward onto his knees, and he saw Charlie's slight recoil at the sudden motion.

"Shh," he whispered, "I'm just gonna--" Say goodbye, but he couldn't actually say it, not out loud.

He kissed Charlie's forehead first, and then his cheek, because that was normal. He knew he could do that. His hand curled around Charlie's shoulder, through the sleeping bag, and when he hesitated, Charlie turned his head and Don met the motion, so the kiss was mutual.

Don shuddered at the touch of Charlie's mouth under his, his hand tightening reflexively, and he felt Charlie shiver right back. Charlie's lips parted under his and he didn't know why he'd thought he couldn't do this, because he could, he was. Here was action, here was motion, here was the exact opposite of sitting still and keeping his hands to himself. Don's mouth dragged over Charlie's, wet and hot and goodbye and I'll come back to you and don't die don't die please don't die.

Charlie broke away to gasp in a breath that sounded like a sob, and Don had to touch him, sliding his hand under the sleeping bag to Charlie's chest, setting his palm over the hammering of Charlie's heart under the prominent bones, with his fingertips against the naked softness of Charlie's throat. Charlie's hand caught his shoulder, holding him close. Don kissed him again, fiercely, desperately, my brother, mine, and Charlie's tongue slid across his, wet and smooth and strong. They were so close, so connected. They were breathing each other's breath in damp, broken gasps. Don would have the mark of Charlie's fingers on his skin.

Don tried to pull away--time was ticking--but he couldn't make the move decisively. They broke apart and reconnected in slight movements and quick brushes of mouth on mouth, glancing contacts of tongue and lips and spit and air. The smell and the taste of Charlie overwhelmed him, Charlie's sweat under his fingers, the prickle of Charlie's stubble against his lips.

They both froze when they heard the bar on the door lift. Don pulled back, and he was kneeling over his baby brother, staring down at Charlie's flushed cheeks, swollen lips, wide eager eyes and the bright slash of a fresh scar. His own breath was coming short, his lips tingling. Don couldn't look away. When the door started to open, he swiped his sleeve across his face, pushed up to his feet and turned away. He didn't dare look back.

Williamson took his gun and handed him an envelope of cash, smiling smoothly all the while. Don didn't bother to count it. Maybe they'd kill him and take it back; maybe they wouldn't. The only thing he could think of buying right then was another gun to fill the empty space under his arm, and he had a feeling he wouldn't get away with that.

Jimmy gave Don exactly one weird sideways look in the course of the twenty-minute drive, and after that Don stared out the window. He didn't think Jimmy had seen anything incriminating this morning, but he definitely didn't want to talk.

"Town" turned out to be a major intersection near the interstate, with a scattering of chain stores and motels. Jimmy parked at the KMart and turned off the car, and Don got out when he did.

"Go where you want," Jimmy said. "Sam'll pick you up tonight."

"Where at?" Don asked, looking around.

Jimmy gave him a sudden, toothy smile. "Don't worry, he'll find you."

c pressed his fingers to his lips and closed his eyes. He'd thought, sometime in the darkness with Don's hand warm on his, that he might get through this day--and whatever followed--by trying to forget Don, forget how things had been when he was here. It would make it easier; he'd gotten along well enough without Don. As long as he had nothing better to compare to, his conditions had not been intolerable.

He hadn't calculated for the kissing, though. He didn't think he could bear to forget that, so he would have to hold on to it. It would have to be enough to get him through everything else.

c lay curled on his cot and waited for whatever would come next.

Don went into the store, because it was somewhere to get out of the cold and he might as well get some use from the money. He wandered the aisles, picking things up almost randomly, until he couldn't stand to kill any more time under the fluorescent lights. He chatted with his cashier, and she gave him directions. Armed with those and his shopping bag, he set out for the Super 8 half a mile away.

Halfway there, by the highway, there was a gas station with a pay phone in the corner of its parking lot. Don stopped walking and stood there staring, frozen in the cold wind.

He could call 911 right now. He could call his dad, or Terry, or the LA Field Office.

It was like a mirage in one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons with a desert island with cartoon characters turning into steaks and ice cream cones before each other's eyes. He couldn't quite believe the phone was real.

Motion in his peripheral vision caught his attention, and Don looked to see Sam standing twenty yards away on the other side of the parking lot, watching him. His face was expressionless, but he shifted his weight and shrugged a little, and Don could see the gun he was carrying. It was an obvious and deliberate warning. Don didn't know if Sam would shoot him right here, at a gas station in broad daylight, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be as good as dead before he got to the phone, to say nothing of Charlie.

Don turned away and kept walking. He didn't spot Sam again, but he could feel eyes on his back every step of the way.

c got bored after a while. He stood up, trailing his sleeping bag from his shoulders, and went to blackboard four. He warmed up as he worked, hardly noticing when he dropped the sleeping bag, though he had to kick it aside half a dozen times before it came to rest underneath the tables. He didn't think about Don, or about not thinking about Don. Absence had a character in mathematics--zero--but outside the blackboards absence was just absence. Out of sight.

He worked steadily until absence became presence, a stray glance discovering Williamson standing in the doorway, watching him. c froze, and Williamson smiled.

Don got a room at the motel just to have walls between him and Sam, but he'd done enough stakeouts to know the privacy was a pretty thin illusion. He couldn't stand the silence, but he also couldn't stand to lie there and watch television while God-knew-what was happening to Charlie. He turned on one of the soaps and lowered the volume until it was just voices in the distance, like working in the open-plan office in LA. He was so homesick for a second he was literally sick with it, but he just gritted his teeth and stared at the ceiling. Homesickness was the least of his worries.

They wouldn't kill Charlie, he didn't think--not really. Charlie was in the middle of planning a job for them, and that had to be when he was safest. If they killed anyone it would be Don; he was expendable. Or worse, they'd just leave him here, pull up stakes and move Charlie somewhere else. Don would never be able to find them again. He didn't even have any proof he could present to anyone that Charlie was alive, or that Williamson and the others were connected to the string of apparently-unrelated crimes.

But Williamson had called it a day off, and Sam was there, tailing him. He was being watched, and if they were bothering to watch they still had a decision to make; his cover wasn't blown just yet. Don stared at the ceiling, listening to the distant shrieking of the soaps, waiting for footsteps outside his door.

He shivered, sitting in the bathtub with his hands cuffed behind him. Water from the tap was running over his feet--just cool enough to leach body heat--and Williamson was perched on the edge of the tub, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder. His sweatpants were soaked, and he couldn't pull his hands up high enough to keep them out of the cold water. The bones were already starting to ache, twinging where the breaks had healed, and his elbow was dully protesting the twist. They hadn't even gotten started yet. He sat and watched the water level rise: over his feet, up to his ankles and over his hips, creeping up his shins.

Williamson's hand tightened all at once, hauling him onto his back with a splash, pinning his hands and arms painfully beneath him. He lifted his head clear of the water automatically, and Williamson caught him by the hair.

"I'm going to want you to tell me all about Mac," Williamson said, pushing his head down, "in just a minute."

He didn't sleep, but there was only so long you could stay alert, and the shitty motel bed was the most comfortable place Don had rested his head in weeks. He sunk far enough into a doze to think he was in his own bed, and knew just enough to know he couldn't move--couldn't think--or the cozy illusion would shatter. He had to think of something else, something that wasn't here or there. His hand rested heavy on his thigh and his mind drifted easily to kissing.

Kissing, kissing Charlie... but it was all right, just kissing, just his mouth on Charlie's, moving slow, and Charlie's mouth so soft and wet under his--and Don was abruptly wide awake, jerking his hand away from himself too late.

"He--he knows things about math," c gasped. He'd tried everything else he could think of--everything but that, trying to hide it--but Williamson didn't care about Don's gun, or his comic books, or his ibuprofen. "P versus NP, I think he--"

Williamson rolled his eyes, visibly bored. He pushed c's head toward the water and he couldn't go under the water again, he really just couldn't, he had to--

"He kissed me," c said, his volume control breaking and the words were nearly a shout, and yes, now Williamson looked interested, though he shouldn't. A kiss shouldn't matter like math or guns or drugs did, but this was no time to think about what should be. If c wanted to keep breathing he had to keep talking, and he wanted very badly to keep breathing even as every breath burned his nose and throat and lungs.

"I sort of--I asked him to and I thought he wouldn't but he did and I--I liked it and I thought he liked it--"

Williamson's gaze grew terribly focused, and c choked on the words, feeling exposed as he never had when he was naked before this man: he'd been hungry, hurt, exhausted, soaked in his own piss, in his own blood, but he'd never been vulnerable like this. He waited for his breath to be cut off again, for the water to cover him, but Williamson's hand jerked him slightly upward, and he kept breathing. The gratitude welled up with the tears and somewhere down inside he thought he really did know Stockholm Syndrome from the real thing.

Then Williamson said, "Tell me more about that."

c closed his eyes and opened his mouth. He could feel every muscle cringing from the sound of his own voice, pouring out the only secrets he'd thought to keep, to get through everything else. Making the best a part of the worst.

"He kissed--he kissed my forehead first," c whispered. "And then my--my cheek, very gently."

Don's heart raced as he stared at the ceiling, and if there had been any mercy in the world, Sam would have stepped inside right then and put a bullet in him. But there was no mercy, and no denying it. He was hard. He'd kissed his brother that morning and liked it, been turned on then and was turned on now, while Charlie was maybe suffering, maybe dying.

But there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help Charlie from here, and Don didn't dare go back to him not knowing what the hell was going on in his own head. If he wasn't better prepared for it than he had been this morning Charlie would catch him off-guard again, and he might want more than kissing next time.

The thought should have been awful, should have been sickening and terrifying--infuriating--and instead all he felt was a curl of heat. His pulse kicked up, and Don smiled sourly. That was an answer, wasn't it? But not enough. He had to know.

Don closed his eyes, letting the thought slide forward, letting his hand drift down. What would happen, if they put him back in with Charlie now, if Charlie smiled and said I still want to have sex with you, if he said hit me or kiss me, right now, let's go.

Another kiss, and this time Charlie pushing, Charlie taking--not so scared, but maybe just as desperate, with his hands on Don's shirt and his mouth hot and hungry. Don's hips jerked up at the thought of that contact, pressing into his own palm through his jeans. His breathing turned harsh and quick as he thought of his hands sliding down Charlie's body. Tugging that sweater off him to reveal Charlie's skin, pale and fine under his fingers. His hand on Charlie's jeans, touching Charlie like he was touching himself--flicking the button open, sliding the zipper down--Don's hips jerked at the thought, heart racing with something that should have been anything but excitement, his dick throbbing harder with every beat of his pulse.

Don bit down hard on his lip, digging his fingernails into his palms, and rolled onto his side, letting his momentum carry him up and onto his feet. He jammed his fingers under his arms, and they dug into his ribs where his gun wasn't. He couldn't think about it. Charlie needed him, and he'd be no good to Charlie like this.

c's cheekbone pressed painfully against the edge of the tub, and he shut his eyes tight as he breathed. The water lapped at his throat, and it was warmer than it had been or he was colder. They were approaching thermal equilibrium, he and the water. Williamson's hand clenched in his hair, and his voice seemed to come from further away than arm's length.

"Come on, now, you've had your rest. Tell me."

c's toes curled against the drain, but he couldn't get enough pain from his waterlogged skin to force himself to alertness. He pressed his cheek down instead, and jerked his hands backward until pain shot through his shoulders, clearing some of the fog from his brain.

"Tell what?" he whispered. He remembered, but he might get away with asking, and he wanted to delay. Williamson was under his skin now, poking at soft, raw places that squished and bled at a touch.

There was a splash, and he flinched--Williamson's hand in his hair kept him steady, so that he yanked out a few strands, bright sharp pains in his scalp. He couldn't avoid the handful of water Williamson poured over his face, just blinked it frantically out of his eyes, blew out through his nose and choked, though none had even made it into his mouth.

Williamson waited until he'd managed to stop coughing and then said, "Come on. Tell me what I asked you to tell me."

"What I want," c whispered, and his face was wet. It didn't matter. Williamson had seen him cry before, and that was the least of this. Williamson's hand tightened warningly when he hesitated, and c rushed the words out.

"Touch him, I want to touch and--and look at him, the lights on and--no clothes and touch him--"

"Where?" Williamson interrupted, because he wouldn't let c forget this was an interrogation, not for a second.

"His dick," c whispered, because it was the answer Williamson would expect. "His ass, his mouth, his throat, the--"

Still he stumbled on the words, his mouth working in silence, and there was no warning this time, he was under, fighting to get his mouth and his nose shut against the cool silky pressure of water and next time, next time he would just breathe it in and die--next time--and it was almost a disappointment when Williamson dragged him up and c breathed air again, because it wasn't over.

"Where?" Williamson repeated.

c sobbed, made an automatic motion to wipe the warm snot from his face and wrenched his shoulder and wrist. The jolt of pain snapped something deeper than bone or muscle; he relaxed against Williamson's hand, clenched in the front of his shirt.

"His face," c whispered, and it didn't even mean anything, or what it meant was so far away he'd never reach it. It was just words now. "His face--beside his eyes, when he smiles--"

Don kept pacing until he found himself facing the wall in the bathroom, and sat down on the edge of the tub, head in hands. So he wanted to fuck Charlie almost as much as Charlie wanted to fuck him: fantastic. Charlie was sick, Charlie's mistake was innocent, but Don was the other kind of sick, so fucked up he was turned on by his own baby brother, damaged and scared and dependent on him for everything, and--

He shuddered, and he did feel sick now, when he thought about it coldly, when he ignored how Charlie didn't look sick, didn't feel sick--

Don's fingers dug in against his temples, like he could claw out his eyes, claw out his own brain, and make this thing go away. He forced his hands open, stood up and went to the sink, splashing water on his face, blinking it from his eyes. He rubbed the back of his hand against his nose. He looked his reflection steadily in the eye.

"Wanting it doesn't make a difference," he said quietly, forcing the words out past the taste of bile, the shaking of his stomach, the way his throat tried to close rather than let this out into the air. "Wanting Charlie doesn't change anything. It's wrong."

It was what Charlie wanted--this morning he'd even thought it was what Charlie needed--but Don couldn't do it again. He couldn't let himself get off on this, on Charlie like this. Don was the older brother here, the responsible one, the one who knew better. It was time he acted like it.

His chest ached where Williamson had made him breathe again, and the burning strain in his shoulders was the only place he felt warm. His face was mashed into the bathroom rug and every breath tasted like blood, but it wasn't over, no matter how he'd tried.

"Tell me," Williamson said. "Once more, and then you're done."

He tried to turn his face away--it had to be a lie, except Williamson's behavior in certain respects was entirely predictable, and Williamson never told him that lie. Williamson's hand turned gentle, stroking his cheek. c shuddered, but he was shivering so hard he didn't think Williamson could tell.

"Just tell me," Williamson repeated. "What do you think?"

I think I'd rather die than tell you, he thought, but you won't let me.

"He loves me," c whispered, because there was no escaping it.

"And you?" Williamson murmured, pushing c over, turning his face toward the light.

c opened his mouth, staring up at Williamson, but he didn't say it. Don had told him not to say it again, and he wouldn't--couldn't. The words stopped in his throat and stuck there, choking him.

After a few seconds Williamson smiled. He'd heard it anyway.

Williamson got up, delivering a casual kick to c's midsection as he turned away. c curled around his belly, gasping for breath again, and watched through nearly-closed eyes as Williamson stepped out the bathroom door.

"Jimmy," he called, not raising his voice particularly, "Tell Sam code three on Mac, and then put Know-Nothing away."

c closed his eyes. Code three could be anything, but there was no data to suggest that Williamson would ever knowingly give him anything he loved.

Don stood just behind the door of his motel room for a long time with the postcard in his hands. Someone had left it behind, tucked into the Gideon Bible, which had seemed like too good a chance to pass up. He had addressed it but otherwise left it blank. There was a blue mailbox out near the front office.

He would be in full view of the parking lot; Sam would see him drop the postcard. If sending a postcard was the same as making a phone call, he could get himself killed, and lose Charlie his one shot at getting out alive. If he didn't send it things would stay exactly the same: no backup, no hope of a second chance for Charlie if Don failed.

He turned back for a second, taking a last look around the room, but he'd brought little enough in with him: he was wearing his coat, and his shopping bag was at his feet. He picked it up, took the chain off the door, and stepped outside.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled with the consciousness of being watched, and he walked in steady strides, twiddling the postcard between his fingers, giving Sam a look at the picture of the Chicago skyline, the conspicuous blankness of the message box. Nothing to see. Nothing to kill anyone for.

He got to the mailbox and opened it with the hand holding his shopping bag, tossed the card in quickly before the shot could ring out--but no shot rang out. He stood there for a moment, counting the beats, the footsteps he couldn't quite hear, and then Sam's hand closed on his arm. "Time to go, Mac."

He stood very still as the door shut behind him. His boards were there before him, and he thought dully that he should work--but why? What would Williamson do if he didn't? Kill him? Cover his face with water again? Pull him up again? Williamson knew about Don, and Don wasn't here, and he would never again look up from his work to see Don reading a comic book. So why work? How could he?

His brain had gone slow--waterlogged and cold, shaking--but it occurred to him that he was alone. Williamson wasn't here. If he stopped breathing now, no one could make him start again.

He'd need water.

He spent a moment thinking of how to wring out his shirt to get enough when he realized that the bathroom was right there. He turned and walked past Don's bedroll tied up neatly and ready to be put away, past his own cot as neat and straight and flat as if no one had ever lain on it. Been kissed on it. He shuddered at the thought, the memory of Williamson's avid eyes superimposed over Don's kind, warm ones.

He knelt down at the toilet (where he had sat while Don tended him, where Don had fed him sugar and painkillers--but Williamson knew that now too, had taken it from him while pressing his face down into water) and there was water now, all his own. He pushed the seat up and lowered his face toward the surface of the water. His hair slithered wetly over his head as he moved.

Two quick drops struck the surface of the water just as the tip of his nose touched it, and the sound of the small splashes and feeling of cool water on his skin forced him back, breathing the dry air in huge gasps. He scrambled sideways, pressing himself against the wall, wedging himself into the tight space.

He couldn't do it. Williamson had won.

Somebody had done the laundry in Don's absence: Charlie's clothes and his own were stacked neatly on the dryer. Williamson looked through Don's shopping bag as Don reholstered the Sig. Don watched his face, but Williamson just smiled, digging through Don's few purchases.

Without looking up, he said, "That a good friend of yours, in Reno?"

Don gritted his teeth, sparing a second to be desperately glad he hadn't sent that postcard to his father, and said, "Just somebody whose address I remembered."

It didn't come out quite as easily as he'd hoped it would, but he'd given this up on purpose by way of making a deal. He wouldn't argue against the fiction that he was an employee--that he would do a job, be paid, and go on his way--if Williamson would let him have that one little semblance of freedom. They could know where he sent the postcard, and it would be blank, but he would send it. He wished them all the luck in the world catching Coop checking that PO box.

"Hope he knows you're too busy to entertain visitors," Williamson said idly, running his fingers over the plastic packaging of the blanket Don had bought.

He could refuse to let Don keep it, refuse to let Charlie have it. But he'd called it a day off, like he wanted to play this game, so Don would play along.

"Well, he does what he likes," Don said.

Coop wouldn't come after him, not for a blank postcard. If the card was blank, the message was the postmark, nothing more. There were other ways to signal a call for help, and Don hadn't used any of them. Not yet.

Williamson looked up at him then, with a smile that was nearly a leer. "So do I."

He'd had Charlie all day. Don had seen a lot in ten years, but he didn't pretend he could imagine everything Williamson could have done to Charlie. He wouldn't have killed him, or rendered him unable to work, but Don knew that would only make a guy like Williamson get creative. Don didn't look toward the door, but held Williamson's gaze, waiting him out. Williamson handed his shopping bag back to him and Don tucked it under his arm, not showing more than he had to.

Williamson kept smiling that nasty, knowing smile--Charlie would have told him, of course, Charlie would have told him anything he asked, anything he had to--and pulled something out of his back pocket. The little plastic bag crinkled, and when Williamson shook it out Don could see it was from KMart, like his own. Whatever it was, Jimmy must have picked it up that morning. Williamson held it out and Don took it automatically.

As he looked inside Williamson said, "Fuck him if you want. Probably the only perk you'll get in this job, and I guess he's pretty enough from behind."

A little plastic bottle. A little box. Don crumpled up the bag and shoved it into his own back pocket, and though he knew he had to be careful he scowled at Williamson.

"That an order?"

Williamson grinned. "You gonna tell me to fuck off again? Suit yourself, Mac."

Don bared his teeth and told himself that he was not, of all possible reasons, angry because Williamson was siding with Charlie. He stepped past Williamson--not quite shoving him, just a rough brush of shoulder--to grab the clothes off the dryer. "We done?"

"Sure," Williamson said, and Don turned away, heading for the door. "That's what I like about you, Mac. Your work ethic."

Don gritted his teeth and shuffled the laundry to his left arm so he could unbar the door. Williamson was on his heels and Don didn't hesitate, yanking the door open and stepping quickly inside.

He half-expected a repeat of that first day, Charlie standing at the board in his ratty old sweater, with his left hand braced against the board and right hand flying, but Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Don set everything down just inside the door as Williamson slammed it shut, dropping Williamson's little bag inside his own shopping bag. He took in the room at a glance--his bedroll had been tied up, and Charlie's sleeping bag was laid out neatly on his cot. Somebody had cleaned up while they were doing the laundry. Don was already striding to the bathroom, the one place Charlie would have any sense of being able to hide.

He stopped short in the doorway. Charlie was wedged into the space between the toilet and the exterior wall, with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head leaning against the cinder blocks. His hair was wet, and his lips were blue-tinged, and Charlie wasn't moving. Wasn't visibly breathing. It flashed through Don's mind all at once that after everything, Williamson might just have killed Charlie by accident.

"c," Don said.

Charlie's eyes flashed open, wide and dark in his bloodless face, the newly-healed gash beside his eye the only hint of color. He hauled in a deep, gasping breath as he stared up at Don, but it wasn't relief on his face. It wasn't fear, either. Don was pretty sure he knew that look, but he didn't want to think about it--not on Charlie's face.

Don dropped to his knees, reaching for Charlie. Charlie shut his eyes again, but he didn't pull away, and that was something. Don ran his hands over Charlie's head and neck, over his shoulders and down his back, everywhere he could reach with Charlie curled up the way he was. He hadn't seen blood anywhere, but Charlie was soaking wet, almost cold to the touch. Don couldn't feel him shivering.

"You hurt, c? You bleeding anywhere?"

Charlie shook his head, but still didn't open his mouth. Don had to look away from his face, watching his own hands run uselessly over the wet sweatpants covering Charlie's knees and shins.

"You're freezing," he said. "Come on, we gotta warm you up. Come on."

Charlie didn't move, but he didn't resist being pulled to his feet, and followed Don out to the cot when Don led him by the hand.

The sleeping bag was zipped shut. Don muttered, "Fucking hell."

He leaned down to grab it, letting go of Charlie so he could get it open. It had been zipped up. Charlie couldn't stand a zipped sleeping bag and probably hadn't been in any state to work the zipper for himself.

Don glanced over at Charlie and dropped the sleeping bag on the cot. "c, you gotta get those clothes off, okay? They're just making you colder now, we can't warm you up unless you take them off."

Charlie nodded slightly, but he didn't move.

Don shut his eyes for just a second. He took a deep breath, bracing himself, and said, "I'll help you, okay? Put your hands up for me."

Charlie raised his hands shoulder-high, so that Don could see the fresh dark rings of handcuff-bruises circling both his wrists. Don winced as he grabbed the hem of Charlie's shirt, tugging it up and off quickly, but Charlie didn't flinch. The sodden shirt hit the concrete with a wet slap, and Don spared only a glance at the new bruises on Charlie's chest and stomach before he looked away, tugging down Charlie's sweatpants and boxers in one motion. He grabbed the sleeping bag with his left hand as he dropped Charlie's pants with his right, wrapping it quickly around Charlie. It was more gratifying than it should have been to see Charlie raise a hand to hold it shut around himself.

"Okay, good, good," Don murmured, "here, just sit down and let me take your socks."

Charlie slid obediently to the floor next to the head of the cot, his back against the wall. Don tugged his socks off and then tucked the bottom of the sleeping bag over his bare feet, giving them a quick rub before he moved away. Don laid Charlie's wet clothes out flat on the floor to dry and turned the work light to shine on them. He took off his coat and shrugged out of his holster, so recently returned to him--for all the good his damn gun would do him when they could take him away from Charlie any time they liked. Williamson had made that point clearly enough.

Don left the holstered gun on top of his bag, and shucked out of his shirt before he took off his boots and socks. The hairs stood up on his arms and chest and the back of his neck. His toes curled against the chill of the concrete floor. They'd left Charlie down here soaking wet in the cold, too far out of his mind to look after himself. Don ran a thumb over his belt buckle, considering. Skin to skin was best for heat conduction. He glanced at Charlie, sitting motionless six feet away, wrapped in his sleeping bag with his head on his knees. Harmless. Defenseless. Don left his belt fastened.

He tipped the cot up on end and shut off the overhead lights. He didn't need to see very well to fish the blanket he'd bought out of his shopping bag. He untied and unzipped his own sleeping bag and grabbed the pillow, carrying it all over to Charlie.

Don knelt down in front of Charlie. He hadn't moved a muscle. He was resting his head on his knees, his face down, but at least he'd started to shiver. Don set his hand on the back of Charlie's neck and squeezed gently.

Charlie looked up and his lips twisted, a thin attempt at a smile. Don returned it with interest, reaching for the red fleece blanket.

"Here," he said softly, holding a corner to Charlie's cheek, "I brought you something."

Charlie's smile widened and then vanished as he turned his face away, hiding his eyes against the blanket and Don's hand.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Don whispered, "I'm here, I'm back, it's all right."

Charlie didn't respond to that at all, and Don squeezed the back of his neck again.

"Come on, c, lie down for me, okay? We gotta warm you up, and it's easier with two than one."

Charlie nodded against his hand and moved, letting go of the sleeping bag so it could be spread out under him. He tugged the fleece up to cover himself. Charlie went where Don moved him with carefully-placed hands on his bare skin, and after a couple of minutes they were both lying down, facing the wall, under one sleeping bag and on top of another. Don scooted the pillow under both their heads and then squirmed closer, reaching out to tuck Charlie against himself, shoulders to feet.

Charlie lay still in his arms, shaking continuously, and Don shut his eyes and held on, running a hand up and down Charlie's arm, squeezing his hand where he clutched an edge of the blanket. Charlie had nearly stopped shivering. Don closed his eyes, starting to feel warm himself, to let himself think that Charlie was safe, and then Charlie whispered, "I'm sorry."

"Hey," Don said against his hair, "hey, n--"

"No," Charlie said, "you don't know, Don, I told him--"

Don shut his eyes, pressing his face down against Charlie's bare shoulder. Charlie smelled clean, and the smell of his skin had never been something Don had recognized before this week.

"It's not your fault," Don said, just loudly enough to be heard. "c, he made you--"

"I told him I wanted you," Charlie said in a rush. "I told him you kissed me, I told him you--you care about me."

Don squeezed Charlie closer, crossing his arms over Charlie's chest, telling himself that if Williamson knew the truth, he'd never have let Don come back. He'd never have said what he said.

"He already knew," Don murmured in Charlie's ear. "Or he wouldn't have asked."

Charlie shook his head. "I told him everything, Don. What we did, what it was like, how--how I felt, what I wanted. See--"

He bowed his head, pulling away just far enough to open a small cold gap between their bodies. His voice was a tiny, toneless whisper when he spoke again.

"Secret things."

And Don had asked him whether he was bleeding, like that was the worst Williamson could do to him.

"It's all right," Don whispered, and it was a lie, the kind of lie you'd tell a little kid. Don could feel Charlie not falling for it. He pushed out of Don's grip and struggled over onto his other side, facing Don with his back to the wall.

Charlie met Don's eyes squarely, and Don looked back in the half-light, watching his brother's face. He wanted to tell Charlie something, give him something, but he couldn't think of anything both true and safe, and he couldn't lie, not to Charlie, not right now.

"c," he said softly, and Charlie shook his head slightly and leaned in for a kiss.

Don pulled away, setting his hand against Charlie's chest--bare skin, wiry hair curling against his palm. Charlie was starting to feel warm, but not yet hot. It had to be Don's own sweat, slicking his palm. It had to be panic kicking his pulse up.

"c," he repeated helplessly, but Don couldn't quite make himself say no.

Charlie's hair was wet, and he looked so tired, so drawn and aged and abused. Charlie caught Don's arm and tightened his grip as he leaned in again, though he stopped short of another kiss.

"Please," Charlie whispered. "I just want something that doesn't hurt."

Don closed his eyes and wondered if there had ever been any chance this wouldn't happen. He couldn't say no to Charlie, not like this, not when he'd looked into Charlie's eyes and seen him despairing. Williamson had broken Charlie today, taking things away from him that he hadn't known he could lose, and if Don didn't give him something to hang onto now, it wasn't going to matter if they got out. There wouldn't be any of his brother left to save.

Even as Don decided, Charlie's grip on his arm went slack. He felt Charlie shift backward, going away from him already, like Don had missed the moment just by stopping to think. Don tugged Charlie close, opening his eyes to meet Charlie's as they went wide. He gave Charlie a shaky smile--now or never, do this or watch him die--and then kissed him, and Charlie's hand on Don's arm tightened so hard it hurt as their mouths touched.

Charlie exhaled against his lips, a long ragged sigh, and Don shuddered, sliding his arms around Charlie and deepening the kiss slowly. He could do this, no matter how well he knew it was wrong. He couldn't say whether it was the least evil choice open to him--that would be up to Charlie to judge, someday--but it was all the could think to do now, and the man in the field had to go with his own best judgment.

When Charlie took a breath it was nearly a sob, and Don pulled Charlie tight against himself and kissed him again, for the reassurance of touch, for the moment to figure out what the hell he was doing.

But Charlie wasn't hesitating: he moved closer and shoved the blanket out of the way, baring himself against Don. His hand skidded down Don's side to his hip, Charlie's thumb brushing the skin just above his jeans as his fingers curled against the denim. Don caught his breath as blood rushed to his dick, pulling his mouth from Charlie's. He reached down to catch Charlie's wrist and Charlie's fingers caught at his skin, trying to hold on. Don leaned in to kiss him again, but he didn't release Charlie's hand. This wasn't about him, this couldn't be about what he wanted. This was about Charlie. Charlie needed something that didn't hurt.

"Shh," he breathed against Charlie's mouth, though Charlie hadn't made a sound, hadn't protested at all except the tension in the muscles of his wrist in Don's grip. "Let me."

Charlie nodded jerkily and relaxed, his eyes wide and dark in the dimness. Don shifted, getting one knee under himself and pushing up, pulling Charlie down onto his back and straddling his hips. Don hesitated there for a second, still holding Charlie's wrist, looking down at Charlie lying under him looking up, naked and eager and horrifically tempting. It would be so easy to let go, to forget that he had a purpose here, to just do what he wanted, what they both wanted--but he had to focus.

Don settled lower, releasing Charlie's wrist to run his fingers through Charlie's hair, watching his eyes--but Charlie kept looking up at Don, trusting him, waiting. Don took a breath and wiped the back of one hand across his mouth, the other still tangled up in Charlie's curls.

"c. Buddy."

Charlie's nickname, and he'd been careful not to say it, not to betray himself like that. Until now, when he was about to betray them both.

"I need you to remember something, okay? I need you to remember what I'm going to say."

Charlie nodded, eyebrows drawing in slightly--he didn't understand, but that was all right. Someday he would. Don leaned back, letting what light there was fall on Charlie's face, watching Charlie's eyes to see that he was paying attention.

"If I hurt you," Don said carefully, "then I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."

Charlie frowned, opening his mouth to ask. A glimmer of fear showed in his eyes, and in the sudden slight tension of his body under Don's--it hadn't crossed his mind that Don would hurt him, maybe. He didn't know what Don meant by it. Don leaned down and kissed Charlie, silenced him, silenced them both. Maybe it wasn't fair to ask that future Charlie's forgiveness like this, but he didn't think he could do it without the chance that Charlie might understand. And it felt like forgiveness already, the way Charlie's mouth opened under his, the way Charlie's breath caught on a moan when Don's fingers slid over his collarbone and down onto his chest.

Don scrubbed his fingertips through the hair on Charlie's chest, even though he knew it was kind of an annoying sensation, ticklish and hair-pulling. But it was Charlie under his hands, and Don needed to learn him, the way he squirmed as Don touched him, the heat of his skin, the quick uneven rise and fall of his breathing. Don let his mouth slide away from Charlie's, down the sandpaper rasp of his cheek to his throat. He could hear Charlie's breathing, soft and quick, as he kissed down Charlie's skin and his thumb brushed over Charlie's nipple.

Charlie jerked under him, making a sound more startled than turned on, and Don smiled and did it again, sitting back to look down at Charlie as he did. Charlie's eyelashes fluttered, the corners of his mouth curling up between gasps for breath. Don leaned down to kiss him again, just a brief touch, and then sat back, watching his own hands slide down Charlie's chest. There was round dark bruise under the hair, precisely centered on his sternum. Don touched it lightly, and heard Charlie's breathing stutter, and then laid his hand over it. The bruise was about the size and shape of his palm, just where you'd do chest compressions, and Charlie had been soaking wet. Immersed.

Don lowered his head and kissed Charlie there, careful not to put pressure on the bruise, and shifted down Charlie's body to kiss the bruise on his belly, too. They were both fresh, but as Don lifted his head he saw an older mark, a brown-green patch on his hip. Don looked up and met Charlie's eyes watching him intently, and moved lower again, leaning down to kiss the spot on Charlie's hip where he'd kicked him. Don set his other hand on Charlie's opposite hip. He could feel heat against his wrist, against his cheek. Charlie's dick, standing up hard.

Don let his mouth trail against the soft smooth skin of Charlie's hip, looking at it sideways, blood-dark and thick. He could smell it, smell sex and sweat and Charlie. This was the furthest thing from everything he'd ever wanted in his life--everyone he'd ever wanted--but his own dick was hard in his jeans and he wanted to touch, wanted to taste, wanted to--

Don flicked a glance up at Charlie. His eyes were barely open, but Don could see the gleam of Charlie's eyes behind the darkness of his eyelashes. Charlie was watching him, waiting to see what he would do. Don shut his eyes and dragged his mouth up higher along Charlie's side, trailing lightly against his skin, and let his left hand slide in from Charlie's hip. He slid his palm low across Charlie's belly, down to the dark curling hair. Charlie groaned and jerked under him, the head his dick brushing Don's wrist, an impression of heat and then gone. Don watched Charlie's face, the rising darkness of a flush on his cheeks in the half-light, the skin of his throat shining with sweat. Don reached lower and closed his hand.

Charlie's eyes went wide as he thrust up into Don's sweaty and tentative grip, and when Don tightened his hand Charlie's mouth fell open. Don moved up to kiss him, bracing over Charlie on his right arm and stroking him clumsily, left-handed and backward, but Charlie didn't seem to mind. Charlie's mouth moved erratically under his, gasping, mouthing words Don couldn't hear, but Don couldn't tear himself away from the drag of Charlie's lips against his, the rush of his breath and the odd quick flick of his tongue. Charlie's hips jerked irregularly under his hand, like Charlie was trying to hold still and couldn't manage it. Charlie's hand caught at Don's hip again, fingers hooking into the pocket of his jeans and holding on. Don could feel the pressure of Charlie's knuckles against the crease of his hip, and couldn't spare a hand to push him away.

Charlie's dick was hot in his hand, silk-smooth against Don's callused fingers, and the sensation was such a weird combination of familiar and strange that Don had to look. There wasn't much to see in the shadow between their bodies, just rhythmic motion, accompanied by the sliding sound of skin on skin and Charlie gasping, "Don, Don."

Charlie's voice shook him like nothing else ever had, and the steady motion of Don's hand stuttered--but he couldn't, God, he really couldn't stop now. He buried his face against Charlie's throat, kissing him roughly, moving his hand faster until his name was lost in moans and Charlie arched under him. The sweat ran off Charlie's skin as fast as tears, wetting Don's lips. He licked a spot clean at the base of Charlie's throat, and sucked at Charlie's pale, wet skin hard enough to leave a mark. Charlie's breath choked off as he fucked Don's fist, and Don kept stroking him and kissing him as he came and came, not letting go until Charlie went still beneath him, catching his breath.

Don pushed away from Charlie's body, kneeling up over him to catch his own breath. He looked down at himself to keep from looking at Charlie, the embarrassingly obvious bulge in his jeans, his sticky-wet left hand curled awkwardly in midair. If he took long enough washing up, maybe Charlie would be asleep--

Don's whole body jerked with the shock of Charlie's hand on his dick, warm even through his jeans. He looked up and met Charlie's eyes, watching him intently.

"c," Don said, and his voice was as hoarse as if he'd been the one gasping and moaning. "c, no, don't, you don't have to--"

Charlie rolled his eyes and smiled lazily, grinding his hand against Don's cock, and Don couldn't stop his hips snapping into the friction. Don shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. He couldn't do this, he couldn't let Charlie do this for him. There was no excuse for this.

"c," he said again, reaching down blindly to pull Charlie's hand away. The touch vanished before Don could catch Charlie's hand--and then Charlie grabbed Don's wrist, dragging his left hand down. Don opened his eyes again to the sight of Charlie licking a stripe across his palm, licking his own come off Don's skin.

Don opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Charlie opened his mouth and sucked one of Don's fingers inside, his eyes on Don's, hot and intent, his tongue doing things Charlie shouldn't know how to do. Don shuddered, sickened and unbearably turned on all at once.

"Don't," he whispered, as much to himself as to Charlie.

Charlie's teeth closed on his fingertip for a second, and then Charlie let go. Don shifted his weight onto one knee, watching Charlie warily--so he saw the motion of Charlie's hands flashing out, barely before he felt them catch him, one at the hip and one at the knee. There was a dizzy instant in midair, and then he hit the floor on his side, concrete barely padded by a sleeping bag.

Charlie shoved him onto his back before Don had quite registered what had happened, straddling his hips and reaching for his belt buckle. The impact hurt, and it had knocked half the breath from his lungs, but that wasn't why his heart was racing.

"Fuck--c--"

"Shut up," Charlie replied, working at Don's belt buckle.

Don shook his head, trying to form words past the friction sound of Charlie yanking his belt off, the feeling of Charlie's hands undoing his jeans, and the throb of his dick, hard as he'd ever been. Charlie went still all of a sudden, his fingers on Don's zipper, and met Don's eyes.

"You think you're hurting me," Charlie said slowly: it was his I know you're not a genius, so I'm being patient voice. Don had been hearing it since Charlie was four years old.

"You're not hurting me. I know what it feels like when people hurt me, and it doesn't feel like this. I want this." Charlie dropped lower over him, suddenly. Don froze, but Charlie, oddly, just pressed his lips to Don's temple, beside his eye. His lips dragged against Don's skin as he went on. "I want you. Now stop arguing with me."

Charlie pushed up again and looked down at him, waiting for an answer.

Don shook his head, but he couldn't say it: You don't want me. You want my alias. You want Mac, you want your guard, you want anyone but your brother. You don't even know you have a brother.

You don't even know I exist.

Charlie's hand slid into Don's jockeys, closing around his dick. Don had to turn his face away from the intent look in Charlie's eyes, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from coming at the first touch of Charlie's fingers. It had been months since anyone else touched him, but he knew it was Charlie's hand on his skin, Charlie's sweaty palm, and Charlie's clever fingers stroking him. His hand moved slowly at first, as though he was feeling his way--because, oh God, because c had never--

Charlie started moving faster, his thumb circling the head of Don's dick, and Don's hips snapped up reflexively. Don bit down until he tasted blood, and he was left gasping against the flare of pain, the irresistible pulse of arousal.

Charlie's hand shifted away, tugging his pants and jockeys down together, and Don helped, kicking them off. He was past the point of denying Charlie anything. Charlie settled over him, straddling him as Don had straddled Charlie, but sinking low, skin to skin, so that Don's dick pressed up against the soft skin of his belly. Charlie rocked against him slowly--learning this, too, one cautious movement at a time--and it was almost, almost enough friction. Don could feel Charlie getting hard again in the tight space between their bodies.

Charlie's mouth dragged up Don's throat, lingering at the point of his jaw. The lightest possible scrape of teeth against the tendon made Don gasp. Charlie's mouth found his, and Charlie moved harder and faster against him as he shoved his tongue inside, and then went abruptly still.

Charlie raised his head far enough to look Don in the eye, licking his lip in a slow, thoughtful swipe, and Don didn't want to hear whatever Charlie was going to say. He raised a hand to the back of Charlie's neck, tugging him down for another kiss. Charlie made a satisfied noise against his mouth and kissed him slowly and thoroughly. He ran the tip of his tongue across the bitten spot on the inside of his cheek, making Don shudder and jerk up hard against Charlie's hip.

Charlie was thrusting steadily now, hard against Don, his breath coming faster between sloppy, wet, coppery kisses. Charlie shifted, getting a hand down between them to line them up, dick to dick, hard and hot for each other. Don arched up, getting his hand on Charlie's ass to pull him down harder, heavier, more. Charlie's mouth was soft on his throat, licking, kissing, and Don could barely breathe, his heart pounding and his hips moving uncontrollably. When Charlie kissed his way up to Don's ear and closed his teeth lightly on the lobe, Don jerked under him one final time, gasped, "Oh, fuck, Charlie--" and came.

Charlie held still over him for a moment. Don could feel Charlie watching him and kept his eyes closed. His whole body felt as heavy as the concrete floor, and if he held still enough, maybe he could just keep feeling good, and not remember anything else. Then Charlie's hand slid down his arm, picking up Don's hand, and Don couldn't resist peering through his eyelashes to see what Charlie was doing.

Charlie was sitting back against Don's thighs, watching Don's face, holding Don's hand. Charlie smiled, tilted his head, and tugged on Don's hand. Don went where Charlie pulled him, curling his hand around Charlie's cock--his right hand this time, at least. The angle was better, and the feeling of a dick in his hand was familiar and strange and hot, in a vague way, stirring something down in his belly, heavy and sated but never indifferent. But Charlie didn't let go of Don's hand, keeping his own curled around it, his palm against Don's knuckles, his fingers over Don's fingers.

Don let his eyes sink all the way shut again, so there was nothing to distract him from the feeling of their hands on Charlie's dick, and then Charlie started to move, dragging Don's hand up and down. Don went where Charlie moved him, jerking Charlie off how Charlie wanted him to. Tighter when Charlie's hand tightened on his, this flick of fingers and that motion with the thumb. Don didn't know whether Charlie was showing him how he liked it or just using him to make it more interesting, but after a while Charlie bent low over their hands and kissed Don's closed eyes and then his mouth, lightly, just lips and ragged breath, touch and go and touch, on and on and on until Charlie came with a sigh against Don's mouth, his cock jerking under their joined hands, hot and wet between their bellies.

Don shook his hand free of Charlie's and pulled Charlie down on top of himself, heavy and warm and still. He laid his hand on Charlie's back, so he could feel the slowing beat of Charlie's heart, and Charlie was breathing wet and quick against Don's throat. They were hot and sticky--God, they were disgusting--but they were both still alive, and maybe he couldn't ask for more than that tonight.

c opened his eyes to Don, standing near the door and pulling a shirt on. He was already wearing his jeans, and c found that the sleeping bags and the soft red blanket had been tucked carefully around him, so that he was still as warm as if Don were beside him. Or, he thought, smiling a little to himself as he remembered, over him, or under him.

Don straightened up, keeping his back to c and running a hand through his hair, and c felt his own smile falter. Sex with another actual person--one who liked him and wanted him to feel good, even--had been a lot like he'd thought it might be, a lot like he thought he might be remembering from sometime before, in the same wordless faceless way he remembered everything he found he knew. Hot and messy and good and something he wanted to do again just as soon as humanly possible, except...

For a little while last night, he'd thought he finally understood what was going on in Don's head: Don had been so intent when he said I never wanted to hurt you, and there had been something so defeated in his voice. c had thought that he'd finally found it, finally identified the place where Don's assessment of their situation diverged from his own. Don didn't want to hurt him, and Don thought having sex with him automatically meant hurting him. c supposed that, technically speaking, Don had a point: c was a prisoner, Don was his guard. There were ethical issues. But he'd thought they could be overcome if he could demonstrate to Don that no real harm was done.

c had miscalculated. He'd never considered that he might have the power to hurt Don until he'd tasted blood in Don's mouth, and at that moment, knowing, he'd have stopped. But Don had pulled him down and kissed him again, and c had given up on calculating anything for a little while. Then Don had said a name--not just said it, but had it ripped out of him on the verge of orgasm, dragging feelings and meanings and things c couldn't begin to analyze along with it.

It had never occurred to c--because Don had never brought it up, because c had a tendency to forget that other people had worlds bigger than a basement room--that the reason Don had resisted having sex with him might have been fidelity to some other person not present. He knew he'd have dismissed the objection as readily as he had dismissed all of Don's objections. He'd have pointed out the absence of a ring on Don's hand, or said that anyone he could bear to be separated from for this job couldn't be that important to him.

But Don had said that name like it was the most important thing in the world, and maybe that was why he'd never said it before. Maybe he hadn't wanted to hear c dismiss someone so important from consideration as easily as a hypothetical illness or supposed psychological disorder.

The whole idea made c feel all sorts of things, squishy mobile sensations in his guts that he could never lay out in rows and work through. He felt sick. He felt sorry that he'd made Don betray someone who mattered so much to him, that he'd hurt Don without knowing it, that he'd known perfectly well what he was doing--hadn't Don been furious with him? Hadn't Don said no a hundred times?--and done it anyway. He felt angry that Don hadn't told him the truth before--still hadn't told him now--and viciously glad that Don was here with him instead of somewhere else with that someone else. But when Don turned so that c could see his face from where he lay with his eyes nearly closed, sorry won out over everything. Don looked tired, worried and pale, his face shadowed with stubble. c tried to think of how to apologize, when after all Don had pulled him down for a kiss, when Don had let c take his hand and use it, when Don had pulled him close afterward and held on until long after c could tell he was asleep.

Don took a step toward the bathroom, staring at the far wall. c tightened his arms around himself like a shield in his cocoon of blankets and said, "Who's Charlie?"

Don froze: an abrupt, unnatural failure of momentum. He didn't close his eyes, didn't look toward c or away.

His hands, open at his sides, didn't twitch. c understood the feeling. He had done the same when Don had said Charlie's name last night, frozen just like that when he had thought that his momentum would drive him on and on and on without any possibility of stopping. c didn't breathe while Don didn't move, waiting to see what would follow the freeze: an explosion or a retreat, terrible fury or a silence just as cold.

He saw Don swallow, and then Don looked at him, eyebrows drawing down though his mouth twitched into and out of a small, tense smile.

"You are," Don said.

c laughed, a short incredulous sound, all surprise and release of tension and no actual amusement. c forced himself to be quiet as Don kept looking at him, not laughing back.

"Me?"

Don nodded and looked away, then back. He sighed.

"It's the radio alphabet. You know, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta... C is Charlie. It's more of a--" Don looked away again, shrugging stiffly, "a person's name, not a number. I think of you that way sometimes. I'll stop if it bugs you."

c blinked, watching Don's face. It defied reason, that he himself could be the person who mattered so much to Don, whose name had been wrenched from Don's mouth. But why would Don lie? Why shouldn't he just say there was someone else, somewhere else, or had been once, or...

"No, I... really? Me?"

Don met his eyes again and gave him a small smile, bleak but real enough to reach his eyes, making wrinkles there, where c had finally kissed him last night--something else to lose, now. c's heart squeezed tight and he couldn't breathe.

"Who else?"

Charlie. A name, a person's name like Don had said, and given to him by someone else, someone who cared. A gift, like the blanket, and maybe the trouble with choosing a name for himself had always been that names were supposed to come from other people. C is Charlie. It fit, with a progression he could trace from the name he'd given himself to the one Don had made it into.

"Charlie," he repeated slowly. "I like that. Charlie."

Don was still smiling, though he still looked tired and drawn. But he said, "Yeah. Charlie."

Don stood there holding his gaze until Charlie could feel his own eyes watering. Don blinked and then looked away, shaking his head and running his hand through his hair, and walked to the bathroom, where he'd been heading in the first place.

The tap turned on, and c found himself curling tighter automatically, hiding his face in the fleece blanket and clutching his knees. The day before crashed back down on him like a wave--the water, and Williamson, and all the things he'd said. But this morning was different from last night: he had something to lose now. He had Don, and a name, and new secrets that wouldn't stay secret long. His breath caught at the things he might be made to tell after today, his heart racing faster, water running from his eyes, and not even the pounding of his heart could drown out the sound of running water.

"Charlie? Hey, sleepyhe--hey. Charlie."

He fought the grip on his shoulder automatically and fruitlessly, bucking against the hard hand until sound penetrated his panic. "Charlie, hey, hey, it's me, it's okay, Charlie."

Don. Of course it was Don. Don had gone into the bathroom and turned on the sink tap like he'd done dozens of times before. Charlie opened his eyes and Don was looking down at him, eyes black in his pale face--but he smiled shakily when Charlie opened his eyes. "Earth to Charlie. You in there?"

It sounded familiar in Don's mouth, not new or awkward at all, and that alone could convince him that he had been "Charlie" to Don for a while now. Charlie shook his head, refocusing, and then nodded when he realized what the question had been.

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry, I'm--I'm here."

" Good," Don said, and then he tipped forward from his crouch to kneel in front of Charlie, and before Charlie knew quite what was going on, Don was hugging him tightly. There was cool air against Charlie's back, where the blanket had fallen away when he moved, striped with the warmth and pressure of Don's arms. He raised one hand to Don's shoulder and let his face fall forward onto Don's shoulder, breathing in Don's smell. Don's cheek pressed against the top of his head. Neither of them moved, breath after breath after breath, but eventually something had to give. Charlie raised his other hand--just to Don's side--but Don flinched and lifted his head.

"Okay," Don said softly. "Charlie, I hate to say this, but you need a shower."

c froze and tried to jerk away. Don's arms tightened for an instant and then Don let him go, and Charlie fell back against the wall, clenching his fists in the sleeping bags and trying not to think about the sound of water, water on his face--

"Hey," Don said, but c couldn't look. He shut his eyes, shivering, feeling the smooth confines of the tub around him again, the water creeping up, covering his face. Don's hands on him tightened, jerking him upward. He gasped for breath reflexively, and then he was pulled tight against Don's chest.

"Hey," Don said, "Charlie."

He was pushed away again just as abruptly, and the loss of contact made him open his eyes.

"Look at me," Don said. "Charlie," and Charlie had to look.

Don leaned in again and kissed his forehead, and then drew back just far enough to speak, his lips brushing Charlie's skin. "I know you don't want to go back in there, Charlie. I know."

Charlie shuddered, and Don's hands shifted from their grip on his arms, one curling around his shoulders and the other running up and down his spine. Charlie clenched his eyes shut, and tried to think of nothing but Don's hands.

"But you have to, and I will be with you, and you will be okay. As long as I'm with you, I will do everything I can to protect you. You know that, right?"

Charlie nodded a little, and Don shifted, letting his forehead rest against Charlie's. "I'll be right there," Don repeated, and then sighed against Charlie's mouth, not quite a touch. "Come on, let's get you dressed."

The TV in the living room was turned up so loudly that Don could hear it clearly from the top of the basement stairs, and that had to be a bad sign. He thought Charlie might have telegraphed the same impression, but it was hard to tell; he had been continuously tense and shivering since Don first suggested a shower, and hadn't spoken a word.

Don kept him moving because there was nothing else to do, up the stairs and through the kitchen, cataloging the dishes in the sink at a glance. The feeling of 'kids home alone' was palpable. Williamson must have gone somewhere and obviously wasn't expected back soon. If Charlie hadn't been practically catatonic, it might have been a good moment to try something, but he didn't think he could get Charlie to walk to the street at this point, let alone go running off to nowhere under fire. As it was, he had to keep steady pressure on Charlie's shoulder to get him through the doorway and into the living room.

One of the men was slouched on the couch, flipping through channels with a glazed, vacant expression. Don had never heard him speak, though he'd seen him during a dinner break or two. Randy was tall and lean, younger than most of the men--younger than Charlie, Don thought. He looked up from the TV as they entered the room, Don pushing Charlie ahead of him, and something predatory sparked in Randy's eyes.

Don didn't think, he just moved, one quick stride to bring himself level with Charlie, yanking Charlie behind him before Randy had time to so much as sit up straight. He did sit up, leaning his elbow on his knee and smirking right through Don at the spot where Charlie stood stock still under Don's hand. Don held his ground, not releasing his grip on Charlie, not smiling, not moving a muscle toward his gun or away from it. He had stared down worse than some twenty-six-year-old punk with a fifteen-second attention span and a tendency to torment the helpless. When Randy's gaze finally flicked up to meet his, Don shook his head slightly, pulled Charlie around to his far side, and walked him past the couch to the hallway.

At the bathroom doorway Charlie froze, seeming paralyzed by the equal forces of his fear of going back to the place he'd been tortured the day before and Randy's dead-eyed, malevolent presence behind them. Don gave him a full second, and then shoved him bodily across the threshold, following him in and locking the door. Charlie stumbled a stride further, catching himself on the towel bar just short of pitching headfirst into the tub. The bag of his clean clothes fell from his hand, and Don leaned past Charlie without touching him to pick it up, letting him have his moment now that they were safely inside. Charlie didn't let go of the towel bar, didn't straighten up, didn't look over.

Don turned away, setting down the bag on the sink and pulled out a towel and washcloth. He'd just bet the laundry cycle was going to get fucked, too, with Williamson gone, and made a mental note to take a couple of towels down with them. Behind him, in a low, desperate voice, Charlie said, "I can't. I can't."

Don turned back, reaching out to touch Charlie's shoulder, and Charlie didn't so much pull away from the touch as go suddenly limp, sliding down the wall to huddle on the floor, face against his knees. Don crouched beside Charlie with one hand on his back, and stared unseeingly at the chrome shine of the faucet, considering his options.

The only way he was going to get Charlie into the shower was the same way he'd gotten him into the bathroom: actually pushing him through it, every step. Don glanced toward the door, listening for a second to the continued noise of the TV--but there was exactly no reason to care what anyone else was going to think. They were already thinking it. Fuck, after last night they were right. And anyway, he needed a shower at least as much as Charlie did, and probably couldn't rely on getting his dinner break any more than he could rely on anything else running smooth.

Don squeezed Charlie's shoulder and moved to sit on the edge of the tub, unlacing his boots. He stuffed his socks into them and stood up, shrugging out of his shoulder holster and setting it down on the back of the toilet. Charlie flinched when the buckle clinked against the porcelain and finally looked up. Don watched from the corner of his eye as he unbuckled his belt, letting Charlie look without visibly looking back. Charlie was staring at him, lips slightly parted, though for once there was nothing speculative in his eyes. It somehow wasn't comforting to know that Charlie could be derailed from sex by mortal terror.

When Don laid down his belt and started to pull off his shirt, Charlie said, barely above a whisper, "Don?"

"Yeah," Don said, keeping his eyes on his hands as he thumbed open the button on his jeans and unzipped them. "I'm right here."

Charlie flinched as Don's pants slid down, and he pressed himself harder against the wall. Don kept the motion of his hands slow and steady and visible, folding his jeans and dropping them on top of his boots.

"Don," Charlie said, "I don't--I can't--what are you doing?"

Don went still, looking down at Charlie, taking the time to think it through as Charlie stared at him. Charlie worked by predicting things; he predicted by patterns; Don wasn't adhering to any of the patterns they'd established. So, no, Charlie didn't know what he was doing, and the uncertainty was scaring him as much as anything else.

"Hey," Don said, crouching to Charlie's level. "I said I'd help you. I said I'd stick with you. I meant it. That's all."

Charlie's gaze flicked from Don to the bathtub and back to Don, skipping down from his face to his body. Charlie still wasn't checking him out, as far as Don could tell--just taking in the fact of x amount of bare skin in proximity y. Don could see the moment when the pattern slotted into place.

Charlie said, "Help me," as his eyes met Don's again, with an uncertain inflection--maybe an echo, maybe a request.

Don nodded and reached for the hem of Charlie's shirt, the wet-and-dried fabric stiff and rough under his fingers, and tugged it up and off. Charlie didn't fight him and didn't quite cooperate. As soon as Don had dragged the shirt off Charlie's arms he wrapped them around himself, holding on tight.

The way Charlie sat made the jut of his collarbones more obvious, shadowed below and punctuated by the small, red mark at the spot where Charlie's neck met his left shoulder. Don let his eyes skim away from that sight, to the bruises on his chest, to the spot where his chest hair looked glued together. Don wrinkled his nose and flicked his fingertip gently against Charlie's shoulder.

"Definitely time for a shower. Come on. Up."

Charlie just blinked at him, but when Don set a hand on his shoulder, Charlie turned his face away and pushed up to his feet. Don stood with him, twisting sideways to turn on the water. Charlie shifted away in the tight space between Don and the wall, and even though his eyes were on the slowly-warming rush of water over his fingers, Don couldn't help being aware of Charlie dropping his sweatpants and kicking them aside.

All he'd have to do to really and truly distract Charlie from his brand-new bathtub phobia would be to turn his head, take a half-step in and press himself up against Charlie's body. Kiss him again. Touch him again. Don knew how now, exactly how and where and what it would feel like and the sounds Charlie would make against his mouth.

Don pressed the joint of his index finger against the hard edge of the faucet and held it there, even after the water started to steam, nearly scalding him. He couldn't think about that. It hadn't been about him, about what he wanted. He'd taken care of Charlie when Charlie needed him. That was all. Charlie didn't need that now. Charlie needed a goddamn shower, and Don needed to keep it in his pants even if he wasn't actually wearing any. He switched the shower on and slipped his jockeys off without looking at Charlie.

Don got under the spray, turning his face into it for a second, and then turned, blinking, to look at Charlie. He opened his mouth to say coming?, and then closed it without speaking, stepping back to make a space under the water. He beckoned to Charlie with his hand.

Charlie bit his lip, rocking slightly on his heels, and Don kept his eyes fixed on Charlie's face. Just his face.

Charlie nodded and followed Don into the shower. He turned his back to Don, one hand over his head as he stood under the spray so the water didn't fall on him directly. Don yanked the shower curtain shut--there would be puddles on the floor, and no one would clean them up--and Charlie scooted away from the movement of his arm, pressing closer to the shower wall. Don backed off a half-step, but it didn't help; Charlie's hands pressed flat to the tiles, and Don could see the muscles bunching in his shoulders and all down his back, a full-body cringe.

"Hey," Don said, and it was safe now, covered by the sound of the falling water. "Charlie, hey."

Charlie shook his head slightly, but that was a response, at least. Don tugged on his shoulder, turning Charlie around so they were facing each other, and then looked quickly away, grabbing soap and a cloth. Charlie wrapped his arms around himself again and stood there while Don lathered the cloth. He twitched--not away, exactly, just jumping a little--when Don touched him again, running the cloth over the hard, angular curve of his shoulder, down over the trembling-tense muscle of his biceps.

Charlie didn't move under Don's hands, but he let Don pull his arm away from his body and wash it, flinching a little when Don soaped his armpit. Charlie had always been ticklish. Don didn't let himself think about Charlie's skin under his fingers, the smell of both their bodies rising up in the steam, the slippery smoothness of soap. Maybe Charlie did need to be distracted, maybe...

Maybe Don needed to be distracted. He turned Charlie under the water, making him rinse off, and scrubbed the back of Charlie's neck and behind his ears while they were handy.

"You scared?" he said softly.

Charlie shrugged tightly, but when Don pushed his head under the water to rinse, he shuddered convulsively, slapping his hands up against the tile again, and nodded hard under Don's hand on his head.

"Yeah," Don said, letting Charlie raise his head, scrubbing at his back. Charlie shuddered again, and Don groped for words.

"It's okay to be scared. I mean." Don bit his lip hard, running the washcloth quickly over Charlie's ass. "You know, six is scared too."

Don took his hands away, and Charlie peeked back over his shoulder, then turned to rinse all by himself.

"Six?"

"Yeah, you know." Don squinted, scrubbing at his little brother's chest hair, and didn't think about what he was washing out of it, just thought about not smiling.

"Six." He traced the numeral on Charlie's shoulder, squeezing the washcloth out with his other hand. "Six is scared of seven."

He glanced up at Charlie's face. Charlie was blinking at him, completely baffled, completely focused on Don.

"You know why?" Don asked, lowering his gaze to Charlie's left arm, scrubbing at his elbow.

He saw the shake of Charlie's head from the corner of his eye, and pushed Charlie to half-turn and rinse again, so that he could speak into Charlie's ear.

"Because seven eight nine."

Charlie let out a startled bark of laughter, and even as Don grinned at him, his breath caught, because Charlie had honestly been surprised by the punch line. Charlie had never heard that joke before, not that he could remember. He was shaking his head, and when Don pressed the washcloth into his hand Charlie took it, washing up apparently on autopilot.

"That's the worst joke I've ever heard," Charlie said.

"Yeah?" Don said, stepping back, keeping the grin on his face, keeping his voice light, not thinking about how many jokes Charlie could remember having heard in his life.

"What's the difference between peanut butter and an elephant?"

Charlie turned, rinsing, but craned his head over his shoulder to keep watching Don. He was frowning in concentration, trying to figure it out, but shook his head after a few seconds.

"Elephant won't stick to the roof of your mouth," Don said, and without pausing for breath, thanking God for all those hours of stakeouts with Coop and his endless supply of stupid, stupid jokes.

"How is a duck the same as a bicycle?"

Charlie squinted at Don, now just standing still under the water, trying to make sense of the joke. Don could see him trying to reason it out, trying to extrapolate from one joke to the next.

"They both have wheels," Don said, because Charlie was never going to give up and ask him. "Except for the duck."

Charlie grinned, shaking his head, and then his eyes widened and he said, "Hey, wait, I--"

Don stopped breathing as Charlie looked away, his gaze tracking left--Don's left, subject's right, suggestive of reference to memory, may indicate truth-telling. His head turned, following his gaze, and Don couldn't look away from Charlie's profile, the bright smile in his eyes, the stark pink slash of the scar. Don was standing here, naked in the shower with his little brother, washing off last night's sex, and Charlie was remembering something. For the first time, Don wished he wouldn't. If Charlie remembered, the smile would vanish. Those eyes would turn furious, betrayed, disbelieving. Hurt, scarred. Violated. Abused. Raped. Charlie was sick, injured, traumatized. He was Don's prisoner, his charge, his responsibility. His brother. And he had--

Charlie's eyes met his suddenly, and Charlie was grinning as he said, "How can you tell that a mathematician is extroverted?"

He jumps on top of you and opens your pants, Don thought, holding his smile, holding Charlie's bright gaze, and reminding himself that Charlie had never interrogated anyone, and wouldn't know how forced his expression was.

"I don't know, how?"

Charlie's gaze slid slowly down his body, slowly back up, and Don clenched his hands against the impulse to cover himself, forcing them open again instantly. Charlie didn't seem to notice. He leaned toward Don and said, laughter barely restrained, "When he speaks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own."

Charlie, so far as Don knew, didn't have any shoes. Don summoned up a snort of non-laughter--like Charlie's joke just wasn't funny, any more than his own were--and offered Charlie the bar of soap.

"Wash your hair, Dr. Extrovert."

Charlie frowned a little but ducked his head, rubbing soap through his hair. Don started washing up himself, maneuvering awkwardly to get at the water around the suddenly immobile pillar of Charlie. He was staring at his own feet now. Don pushed him bodily back a step so he could get under the water himself, and Charlie said, without raising his head or slowing the mechanical motion of his hands, "Do you think so?"

Don frowned, looking down at Charlie's face, but Charlie didn't look up. "Think what?"

"Think I have a doctorate," Charlie said, and now he did look up, his eyes searching Don's.

Don stared back, then forced himself to look away, shrugging as he ran the washcloth over his own skin, not thinking of the way Charlie had spent weeks bursting with excitement after his thesis defense, filling every available writing surface with furtively scribbled repetitions of Dr. Charles Eppes.

"You know a lot of math, right? They give people degrees for that."

Charlie nodded, but his eyes turned down again, and he turned his back to Don to rinse his hair with his head ducked. So his face didn't get wet, Don realized, a split second before Charlie said, "If I'd been through a doctoral program, though--people would know who I was. They would have noticed I was missing."

Don opened his mouth and closed it, forcing himself not to say, We noticed, buddy, I promise you we noticed. The water abruptly turned icy cold, and Charlie flinched, but didn't make a sound. He wasn't surprised, Don realized, and now that he thought about it, the damn dishwasher was always on when they went back downstairs. Such a stupid, juvenile thing, but it left Charlie shivering every morning, and Charlie was so used to it he'd never said anything. Don had never even known.

"Okay," Don said. "Hurry up, let's go."

Charlie nodded, running his hands quickly through his hair to rinse it as Don scrubbed himself, gritting his teeth as he started to shiver. Don shut off the water as soon as they were both reasonably clean, and didn't look over at Charlie as they dried off. He didn't think Charlie looked at him, either.

They got dressed quickly, bumping elbows and squeezing awkwardly past each other in the tight space. Charlie brushed his teeth while Don got his holster on, and then Charlie pressed back against the sink, holding the paper bag of his things, while Don stepped past him to unlock the door.

The muffled sound of the television was suddenly loud as Don stepped into the hallway, and Don didn't allow himself to hesitate, dragging Charlie after him as they walked into the living room. Randy was still on the couch, right where they'd left him, and Don could see the moment when Randy spotted his wet hair. He didn't sit up this time, but slouched further into the sofa as a nasty light gleamed in his eyes.

Don and Charlie had made it nearly to the kitchen when he drawled, "Isn't that romantic," and punctuated his statement with a decisive change of channel, hip-hop to cable news.

Don knew even as he turned on his heel that he should have kept walking. Having turned, he had to say something, and it had to be the right thing. He met Randy's gaze, held it for a couple of beats, and then said, "I do my job. If hassling the genius was yours, you wouldn't wait until the boss was gone to do it."

Randy's lips pressed together ever so slightly, but he looked away, changing the channel with a savage jab of his thumb on the remote and a sullen mutter of, "Fag."

Don gritted his teeth and didn't say Better that than a sociopath. It occurred to him that Randy was a looser cannon than any of the others he'd met so far, and maybe he could use that--but not now, not with Charlie in the line of fire. Don turned back to Charlie, and found Charlie watching him, eyes wide and unreadable.

When Don pushed, Charlie turned and walked on into the kitchen where Sam, Jimmy, and couple of the other guys were sitting at the kitchen table. Sam was staring fixedly out the window, while the others had their heads down and their mouths diplomatically full. Charlie hesitated minutely, flinching from the massed presence, but Don pushed him on toward the stairs and said levelly, to the room at large, "Somebody get the door?"

A chair slid back as Don started down the stairs with his hand on Charlie's shoulder, but he didn't look to see who it was. Charlie went to his chalkboards as soon as Don pulled the door shut behind them, and Don stood close to it, listening to the sound of the bar and lock being put in place, watching Charlie.

He was just standing in front of the middle chalkboard on the long wall, not even holding a piece of chalk. Don leaned back against the door, waiting. It was cool through his shirt, and water was dripping down the back of his neck. He folded his arms, squeezing the holstered gun against his ribs, and stared at the back of Charlie's neck.

Charlie raised a hand to the spot, as if he felt Don's gaze, and then began running one hand through his hair, finger-combing it. It was probably just that it was wet, but it looked longer than it had when Don had first found him.

"Are you?" Charlie said, without turning around.

Don winced, but smoothed the expression off his face and said, "Am I what?"

There were at least two things Charlie might have been asking, theoretically, but mostly Don just wanted Charlie to look at him.

Charlie obliged him, turning around, still raking his fingers through his hair, as he asked, "Are you just doing your job? Did Williamson order you to?"

The worst thing about the question, Don thought, was that it was utterly matter of fact. Charlie was watching him intently, but his hands never stopped moving through his hair, and his curiosity was detached. Clinical. For an awful instant, Don was reminded of a dream he'd had, Charlie standing over him with a gun in his hand, watching him bleed out with that same calm gaze.

"No," Don said, maybe too fiercely. Charlie tilted his head, eyebrows raised. Don sighed.

"He gave me permission. I let him know I didn't want his permission. He didn't press the point. I didn't intend--"

But Don cut himself off sharply there. There was nothing more useless to say, after the fact, than I didn't mean to.

Still, Charlie nodded, seeming satisfied, and Don peeled himself off the door and went into his bag for fresh clothes and his shaving kit. When he straightened up with the razor in his hand, Charlie was watching him with a different kind of intensity, and had taken a step back, nearly up against his chalkboard. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Don didn't have to hear to know what he was trying to brace himself to ask.

"No cuffs today," Don said firmly. "But if you want a shave, I'll do it."

All at once Charlie was smiling at him, bright with relief, and somehow Don found himself smiling back.

Charlie went straight back to work when Don finished shaving him; sex--or sixteen hours away from his blackboards--seemed to have had a salutary effect on his brain. As soon as he looked at his work, he could see where he was headed, how to work the predictive algorithms, how to fit them together into an expression of the job Williamson had planned. He was vaguely conscious of the sound of Don shaving somewhere behind him, and then, three blackboards later, he looked over to find Don standing at his left side and holding out a sandwich.

Charlie blinked at him, trying to shift mental gears from mathematics to speech, but Don just smiled and took Charlie's left hand, folding his fingers around the sandwich and pushing it gently toward his mouth. Charlie smiled and took a bite, and Don turned away as he turned back to his work. Later, he looked around and found a bottle of water on his table; when he looked past it he spotted Don doing push-ups near the door, and all brain activity abruptly halted. Charlie was vaguely aware of his mouth falling open while he watched the motion of muscle in Don's arms, the steady rise and fall of his body, held in a perfect line, pivoting on his toes through fifteen degrees of arc.

Charlie counted forty-two repetitions before Don crumpled all at once, the neat lines of his body losing coherence as he drew one knee under him. His forehead and elbows sagged to the floor, the broad curve of his back moving with his quick breath. His shirt was dark with sweat down his spine, his holstered gun lay near his right hand, and Charlie abruptly turned back to his blackboard. Don hadn't thought he would look up; it wasn't fair to watch this, whatever it was.

He could still remember the taste of blood in Don's mouth. He could still feel Don's hands touching him, Don's arms holding him close. He could still feel the mark on his throat, scarcely glimpsed in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. But Don had only hugged him this morning, and been carefully chaste in the shower, quiet and businesslike on the other side of the razor. Don wasn't pulling away, but he wasn't continuing what had begun last night, either.

Charlie glanced over his shoulder to find that Don had rolled onto his back, his knees drawn up and his feet flat on the floor. His hands were behind his head, and he seemed to be staring up at the ceiling: maybe about to do sit-ups, maybe staring into space and wondering about the same things Charlie was wondering. I didn't intend, he'd said, and Charlie thought he'd meant it, if only because he'd cut himself off so abruptly. This wasn't part of some master plan. Don didn't know what they were doing either.

Charlie turned back to his blackboard again. He forced himself to consider patterns of security patrol movement, and not ask himself whether he found that comforting or not. He settled quickly back into his work, conscious of nothing but his blackboards and papers, moving back and forth between them as the expression came together. At some point he turned and Don was standing next to the card table, looking down at the box of chalk. Charlie jumped, and Don looked up with a small, sheepish smile, but didn't say anything, just looked back down at the chalk. Charlie closed the distance to the table, picking up the papers he needed, and said, "Don?"

"You mind if I borrow a board?" Don asked, nodding toward blackboard seven, the only one still entirely blank. Charlie stared at him for a moment. Sometimes it felt as if Don had always been here in this basement with him, and then sometimes he did something utterly alien, like ask if he could use a blackboard as though he sincerely believed they were Charlie's to grant or withhold.

"Sure," Charlie said, and Don seemed to hear the smile in his voice.

He looked up and smiled back, and then opened the box of chalk and extracted a stick. Charlie shook his head and went back to his work. He glanced over a little later, and Don was painstakingly drawing a grid on the board, the lines very neat and straight, the spacing even. Eight by eight: the structure of the matrix was familiar in a nagging way, just beneath the surface. Charlie turned back to his own blackboard, thinking about it.

He idly began scribbling his own sloppier matrix, trying to express the entire space of the job, stopped and scrubbed out half of it, started over. A simple matrix wouldn't do for the whole job, and he didn't have a handy way to represent a multidimensional matrix on a flat board, unless...

The next time he looked up, Don was still standing at the blackboard, and there was chalk dust smeared across the back of his jeans. He turned, and Charlie jerked his gaze up to Don's face in time to catch his quick smile.

"Hey, come here. Time for a break."

Charlie glanced back toward his board--but the vector construction was something of a tangent anyway, relevant to planning the job only on the highly conceptual level that Williamson had in the past demonstrated exactly no patience for. Better if he interrupted this line of thought, blotted it out, and got back to work on the predictive expression. Charlie dragged a finger down the edge of the matrix, allowing himself one more wistful look, and then turned his back on it and walked over to where Don was waiting for him.

Don stepped aside so that Charlie could see what he'd drawn on the board. The eight-by-eight grid was complete now, and half the resultant sixty-four squares--every other one--had been shaded gray with smeared white chalk. The others had been wiped carefully clean, so that the slate showed black. Down the left-most column, a symbol had been written in each square in white chalk: R, K, B, Q, and then an odd little heptagon, flat-bottomed with three points at the top, then B, K, R. In the second column, there was a P in every box. The arrangement was mirrored in the right-most columns, in blue chalk.

Charlie looked over at Don watching him expectantly, and when he looked back, it was a chess board in chalk, and the heptagons were crowns--for kings, of course, because the Ks were knights.

"You know how to play?" Don asked.

Charlie smiled. "White or blue? White moves first."

Don groaned. "Wait, never mind, it's over before it starts."

"No, no," Charlie said, his smile widening. "You're right, I should take a break. This is good. Maybe we should make it interesting. We could bet on it. I'll let you have white."

"Betting doesn't actually make it interesting if we both know you're going to win," Don said, but when Charlie looked over he'd picked up the white chalk.

"It could motivate you to put up a fight," Charlie offered, and Don raised his eyebrows.

Not angry, Charlie reminded himself. Not pulling away. He reached past Don to pick up the blue chalk, and said almost casually, "What do you say, I win, I get a kiss?"

Don didn't say anything, and when Charlie looked up Don was squinting at him thoughtfully. "If I win," Don said, "I'm going to make a Scrabble board. And we're going to play that."

"Scrabble," Charlie repeated, looking at the board, his voice wobbling half because Don hadn't said no, and half because... Scrabble? "I don't think I know that one."

"I'll teach you," Don said lightly, rubbed out a pawn and drew it in again two spaces forward. "It's fun, you'll love it."

Charlie frowned at the board, envisioning possible moves--his own and Don's, a dizzying profusion of potential playing out in ghost-chalk before his eyes--and then forced himself to choose one. He rubbed out his queen's pawn with his thumb and drew it in again two spaces forward, facing Don's.

"Huh," Don said. He moved the next pawn over without obvious pause for thought, and Charlie watched possibilities shift and die away. He moved to take Don's second pawn before Don's hand had even dropped to his side, and smiled briefly at Don's defeated sigh. Don brought out his bishop, and Charlie thought he could see the shape of Don's strategy, such as it was--he could see the path to his own victory, a dozen paths to his own victory, and vanishingly few to Don's. He moved his knight, smiling.

After that he was barely conscious of Don beside him, or the chalk in his hand, the slate under his fingers as he rubbed out pieces--his own, Don's--and rewrote them elsewhere. He was watching scenarios, the potential collapsing into the actual, constantly enlivened by the inexpert unpredictability of Don's moves. He had always insisted upon that to Williamson--any scenario that involved amateurs was harder to predict, harder to control--but when Don took the bait, nabbing Charlie's queen with a pawn, the trap was firmly set. Three more moves, and Charlie laughed, delighted, smearing his thumb across the white heptagon.

"Checkmate."

"Ten moves," Don muttered, and Charlie turned to look at him, half eager and half curious, to see what Don would do next. Charlie had won, but Don had never exactly agreed...

Don looked over at him for a moment, then turned to face him, squaring up, and put his hands behind his back. "Okay, Charlie, hit me."

"Um," Charlie said, off balance. He'd been confident he would win, but he hadn't quite believed that Don would concede the wager. He wasn't sure Don was conceding it, even now.

"The bet wasn't, um." Charlie hesitated, his mouth dry as he stepped across the small distance between them.

Just a kiss. He'd kissed Don before this, with less encouragement. Don held his ground, looking steadily into Charlie's eyes and giving nothing away.

Charlie licked his lips and raised his hand cautiously to the back of Don's neck, curling his fingers around the nape. Don didn't stop him, didn't resist Charlie's hesitant tug, letting Charlie draw Don's face down to his own. Charlie leaned up, pressing his mouth to Don's, tightening his fingers against Don's warm skin, and Don sighed, lips parting.

Charlie made a small noise and pushed into the kiss, tilting his head as he licked into Don's mouth. Don's lips moved lightly against his, his tongue brushing Charlie's, and Charlie shivered, heat flaring in his groin as a chill shot down in his spine. He clutched at Don's shirt for balance, leaning in, and Don moved for the first time, setting a hand flat on Charlie's chest, lifting his head just far enough to break the kiss.

"No," Don said, his voice husky, sounding as dazed as Charlie felt. "No, the bet was for one. That's it."

Charlie blinked up at Don, staring into eyes gone almost black. His mouth was still so close to Charlie's that the breath of his words brushed Charlie's lips. His palm rested against Charlie's heart. Charlie could lean into it, haul Don down by the hand on his neck, press past Don's no, forget the flimsy pretext of the bet. Take what he wanted, no matter what Don said. A million possible moves bloomed before his mind's eye, smelling like chalk. Tasting like blood.

Don closed his eyes. He let his head drop so that his forehead rested against Charlie's, and whispered, "Go on. Back to work."

Charlie took a breath--Don's breath, exhaled to him--and then one more, and then nodded and let go.

Dinner, in the form of congealed, lukewarm takeout pizza, arrived a little before nine. Don ate a couple of slices, and cleared a space to set the box down on Charlie's table, not bothering to try to invade the cloud of chalk dust around Charlie's frantically moving hand. Don settled down near the door with a comic book, and twenty minutes later, smiled when he heard Charlie's, "Ooh, pizza."

Charlie didn't speak again for the next several hours, lost in his work. Don experimented with listening at the interior walls, but the furnace was running and served as a depressingly good white-noise generator. Pizza probably meant Williamson wasn't around; the fact that somebody had remembered to feed him and Charlie meant things upstairs hadn't gone entirely off the rails. But if he didn't get a dinner break, if he never got out of this room without Charlie, his options got even more limited than they ever had been. He sat staring into space, thinking pleasant, stupid thoughts about Coop leading a charging SWAT team in here to pull them out.

Don snapped awake, still sitting on the floor, and looked first for Charlie, but found him serenely working away. He paused as Don watched, running a chalk-dusted hand through his hair and graying a wide streak of curls. Don touched his own hair idly, wondering whether he'd find it grayer the next time he looked into a mirror. His dad had been teasing him as they picked up the dishes, reached over and ruffled his hair and said, "Wait till you have kids, it'll all go gray fast enough," and then the doorbell rang and Amita had been standing there, smiling. Don tried to think of what his father's hair had looked like the last time he'd seen him, but the room had been dark.

Don shut his eyes, trying to rein himself in--his mind was wandering. He didn't usually think about this stuff. He couldn't. Don pushed to his feet and went to stand over the tangle of sleeping bags and Charlie's blanket, lying as Charlie had left it that morning. Don had considered, on and off all day, tidying it up. He could set up Charlie's cot again, move his own bedroll aside, but somehow he'd found another way to fill every minute of the last fifteen hours. Now he was exhausted, and Charlie was still up and working and showed no sign of stopping. How much could it possibly matter where either of them slept? Charlie had backed off when Don told him to. Don's hands were dirty; they weren't going to get clean if he slept four feet away. They weren't going to get clean ever. That was no reason to make Charlie sleep cold.

Don reached down and picked up one of the sleeping bags. He wrapped it around himself and lay down with his back to Charlie, leaving Charlie's sleeping bag and blanket in the space between him and the wall.

The next time he opened his eyes, the overhead lights were off and Charlie was stepping over him, digging through the covers and muttering, "I'm just going to lie down for a little--"

"It's okay," Don said. His brain was somewhere dim and warm and quiet, and he couldn't fail to reassure Charlie. "It's okay. Put your head down."

Charlie nodded, settling in, and dragged the fleece blanket up to touch it to his cheek. Don reached out, meaning to touch Charlie's hand where it held the blanket, and was asleep before he could make contact.

The next day Don made him take another break for chess; this time Charlie wagered a hug against Don's continued threat of Scrabble. Don looked startled when he said it, but also, Charlie thought, pleased. The game lasted twelve moves this time, and when it was over Don didn't stand back, but heaved an exaggerated sigh and grabbed Charlie's shoulder, pulling him close.

Charlie let his cheek rest against Don's shoulder as he was held tight and close, and as the hug went on he tried to calculate an equivalence to kisses in area of skin-surface contact, multiplied by duration, and divided by absence of overt sexuality. But then Don squeezed him tighter, straining his ribs, and made a low humming sound in his throat, and Charlie realized Don was happy. All further calculations were suddenly rendered irrelevant.

The day after that, Charlie decided on his strategy, and made his wager accordingly: if he won, the next day they would play two games of chess. Don gave him a skeptical look, but accepted the bet, and Charlie won handily in eleven moves, and then went back to his work.

The next morning he woke up cuddled close to Don. Don murmured in his ear, "You know, some stuff you don't have to win from me."

Charlie smiled and said, "I'm enjoying the challenge."

Don laughed rustily, and squeezed him a little before they got up.

They agreed to hold the chess games back-to-back, allowing Charlie to work straight through the day. He was vaguely conscious of eating lunch--he licked the fingers of the wrong hand at one point, and got a mouthful of chalk--but then there was nothing but the expressions unfolding under his hands, coming together in chalk and slate. Then there was a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of his work, and Don said, "Heads up," in his ear. He turned under Don's hand as the door opened, and Williamson smiled at him from the doorway.

Don squeezed his shoulder and then stepped away, and c didn't move until he heard the door close, and he was alone with Williamson.

"You've been busy," Williamson said.

c looked around his boards, gauging his progress since the last time Williamson had seen them. Since before Williamson had taken him up to the bathroom.

"Yes," c said, and his voice shook.

He clenched his hand on his chalk and stood still, near his board. A headache started to bloom beside his left eye, and he carefully did not reach up and rub at the spot. Williamson's gaze shifted from the boards to the single heap of sleeping bags near the wall, one pillow and one blanket tucked among them.

"Very busy," Williamson murmured, but this time his inflection did not require an answer.

c stood and stared at the sleeping bags, thinking of--of Mac, of all the things Williamson now knew about them. All the things he had told Williamson, and he remembered a whisper in his ear, "He already knew, or he wouldn't have asked."

But then, there were a number of things Williamson didn't know--and c knew now that Williamson had wanted to know those things, which was interesting.

"Yes," c said again, watching Williamson closely to catch the eyelid-shiver that was the only sign that he'd startled Williamson by speaking.

Williamson's gaze on him intensified. "You and Mac--you get along okay?"

"Mm," c said, as though the very idea of Williamson caring whether Know-Nothing got along with one of his employees weren't completely absurd. "I find he... supports optimal function."

He translated himself automatically, as soon as the words were out of his mouth. "He doesn't interrupt me too often."

It was true, too. And his guard's presence seemed to deter everyone else from interrupting him even when he was upstairs, though no one had made an issue of it directly since Randy, that first day.

"Not too often," Williamson said, arching an eyebrow, and c ducked his head, looking away. The flush rose in his face regardless of the fact that Williamson was nearly entirely wrong. It was all right; Williamson expected the flush. He wouldn't look past it.

"And what's this?" Williamson said, turning away. "Chess?"

"Yes," c said, "We--"

Williamson looked up at the hesitation, gaze sharp, curious. "You?"

c swallowed, hating to give this away--but then he had hated to give up his queen to a pawn, too. It had to be done. There was no choice in the matter. Still, his voice came out a ragged whisper as he said, "We bet on it. I always win."

Williamson snorted, almost a laugh--he'd made just that sound when c had confessed to watching Don sleep, and it made him sick now to hear it, made his throat go tight. He couldn't breathe, though no water covered his face.

"That's good, Know-Nothing. I'd hate to see you getting beat by my hired gun."

You've already seen me beaten by your hired gun, c thought, and remembered a kiss pressed to the last bruise remaining from that session in the garage, breath hot on the skin of his hip, the way it had made him shudder, the way it had made him need. Williamson didn't know about that.

Not yet.

"Good," Williamson said, an odd, cheerful heartiness in his voice.

He was pleased by all of this; he'd given his permission, though he hadn't bothered to make it an order. He liked it, but he didn't require it. But he cared.

c kept his gaze on the floor. He knew he was shaking; shaking was all to the good. Williamson would expect to see him shake, and as long as Williamson only saw things he expected to see, he wouldn't ask too many questions. It didn't make c feel less queasy, or less conscious of the fact that Williamson could drown him in the toilet, ten feet away, without even bothering with cuffs or a trip upstairs, if it pleased him to do so.

He heard Williamson's radio click on, and Williamson said, in a clipped, business-like tone, "Mac, I'm done here. Bring down dinner for Know-Nothing."

Faint and distant, he heard Mac's answer. "On my way."

c took a deep breath at that sound, familiar and reassuring even through the tinny quality of the radio output. He took another at the sound of the door being unbarred as Williamson's footsteps moved away from him. The door opened and he finally looked up to see Don step through the door, looking right past Williamson like he wasn't there. Their eyes met as Don came inside, and the door closed again. Williamson was gone, and Williamson had not asked him a single question about the job he was working on.

"Hey," Don said, very softly, when he was standing close beside Charlie. "Hey, how about an advance on tonight's winnings?"

Charlie looked up, frowning slightly--Don wasn't going to have any winnings tonight--but Don set a hand gently on his shoulder, exerting the very slightest pressure to draw Charlie toward him. He would let Charlie resist if he wanted to, and insist on winning the hug fairly before he took it. But Charlie had no resistance left beyond what it had taken to stay on his feet for the last several minutes. He relaxed into Don's arms, and held on until their dinners were thoroughly cold.

It took dinner, two games of chess, and a comic book, but eventually Charlie settled down and went back to work. Don sat and watched him, turning his gun over in his hands, thinking about his first unaccompanied trip upstairs in days. It had lasted less than ten minutes, but that had been enough: something was going on.

It wasn't just that Williamson was back. That had caused an obvious and total attitude adjustment among the men, but they hadn't returned to the usual steady, disciplined team. The men upstairs were like birds on a wire, and Don had been able to feel their tension even in the few minutes he'd been in the kitchen with them. They all contrived to brush their hands across their weapons more frequently than usual, talked more and louder over their food between furtive quick glances toward the windows and doors.

Something was coming. It wasn't a job going down; this wasn't an offensive kind of preparedness. These were men awaiting an assault. Don thought, wistfully, that it might be the cavalry coming--but it was far more likely to be whoever Williamson had hired him to guard against. The way Williamson ran his jobs meant a lot of people worked for him and then didn't work for him anymore; some of them were bound to know or suspect about Charlie. It wouldn't take a genius to grasp that he was valuable, and try to steal him, and what was it Charlie had said? "I hadn't factored that into my life-expectancy calculation before."

Don holstered the Sig and watched Charlie working, listening for shouts, gunshots, for heavy footsteps on the stairs, thinking about everything he still couldn't risk saying to Charlie. Don had spent one of his few minutes upstairs in the living room, looking out the window toward the road. Ten, twelve seconds at a flat-out run, if you had someone there to run to. If you had a plan.

"Hey, Charlie," he said.

Charlie stopped writing and looked over his shoulder at Don, but didn't say anything.

Don looked down at his hands, kept his voice even. "You ever think about trying to improve that life-expectancy calculation of yours?"

He glanced up as the silence stretched. Charlie met his eyes without blinking. "I'm always thinking."

Don nodded, and Charlie turned back to his board, raising his chalk to where he'd left off. Don nodded again, to Charlie's back.

"Good."

Charlie woke up exactly where he'd fallen asleep, tucked against Don's side with Don's arm resting heavily over him. He only had to turn his head and lift Don's wrist slightly to see the face of his watch. It was four-thirty in the morning, and he'd had nearly four hours of sleep. He let go of Don's wrist and pushed up. Don's arm tightened around him, his whole body going tense around Charlie's in an instant and subsiding just as quickly.

"Hey," Don murmured, his voice sleepy, or a good facsimile of it, "it's still dark out, go back to sleep."

"You go back to sleep," Charlie said, because he was already wide awake. Don's arm didn't hold him in place the way it would if it had really been an order. "How do you know it's still dark, anyway?"

But Don didn't answer. By the time Charlie was on his feet, Don seemed to be asleep again, folding forward into the space where Charlie had been lying. Don was right, of course: at four thirty in the morning on the twenty-eighth of November, the sun wouldn't be up yet for hours. Charlie hesitated for a moment, squinting down at his papers in the half-light and wondering why he thought that he knew a precise number. Two hours, nine minutes to sunrise, for this date, this location--what location? He didn't know where he was. He couldn't ever remember seeing the sky.

Charlie shook his head, shuffling papers as he squinted at the boards. He'd been nearly finished with the algorithm he was developing on blackboard six; it only required a few refinements. When he'd found himself trembling and torn over allowing said refinements to encroach on blackboard seven, around the edges of the perpetual chess game, he'd realized that he needed to sleep. Now it seemed clearer and simpler, and it was obvious that nothing would be harmed by a few lines spilling over.

He went to the board and started writing under the work light, leaving the overheads off so Don could sleep. He could see the final shape of the expression emerging, had nearly grasped it, when his concentration was snapped by a clatter from above, footsteps pounding down the stairs. Even as Charlie looked toward the door, Don was on his feet, gun in hand as he moved between Charlie and the doorway, snarling, "Move."

He waved Charlie toward the bathroom, but Charlie was only halfway there when the door was yanked open. He froze at the tables.

Charlie stared, paralyzed, at first registering only Don's hair, spiky and wild in the light from outside. Then Don fell back a step, two steps, and Williamson came in looking grim, breathing fast. It was not a reassuring sight in the slightest.

Williamson glanced briefly at him, then focused on Don. "You know how to administer an injection?"

Don, by his hesitation, didn't know what this was about, but at the mention of an injection it all came clear to Charlie. He fell back another step, heart racing, vision blurring, and barely heard Don's crisp reply.

"Intramuscular or intravenous?"

Williamson said, "Straight to the vein. Give him that, get these cuffs on him, and bring him up to the garage. Leave everything else, the clean-up crew will bring it. Understood?"

"Understood," Don said, and Williamson was gone, leaving the door standing open. The sounds of men moving around upstairs seemed loud. Everything seemed loud, even Don's gentle voice whispering, "c? Charlie? You with me?"

Charlie shook his head, but heard himself say, "We're moving. Usually it's not rushed like this."

Though he didn't know whether it was usually in the middle of the night. Before Don had come, he'd had no idea about when the middle of the night was.

"Do you know what this is?" Don asked, waving a syringe through his vision, the needle-tip still capped.

Charlie nodded jerkily, clutched his elbows and forced himself to let go. "Not the formulation, no, but they drug me each time. It makes me docile and--suggestible."

Don's hand caught his chin, forcing Charlie to meet his eyes, and Charlie could only hold his gaze for an instant before he looked away, at the shine of light on his interrupted work.

"Apt to do as I'm told," he whispered, feeling cold and naked despite his clothes. The dose often lasted longer than the trip from one place to another, and the transport of his blackboards could lag well behind. Handcuffed and semi-sedated, without work to do, he'd been available for the entertainment of Williamson's men.

They hadn't hurt him particularly: hadn't raped him or beaten him too badly to work. The line had always been there, and they hadn't crossed it, but now they knew the line had been crossed with Williamson's permission. Don wouldn't--but who knew what Don's next orders might be? And Don could only protect him for so long as Don was with him. Sometimes not even then.

He felt the chill of cool air on the skin of his forearm as Don pushed his sleeve up, but he wasn't aware that he was shaking until Don said, "Fuck, I can't do this, I'll hit a nerve."

Charlie shook his head and whispered, "You have to, I can't fake it."

Don's hand was on his arm, towing him across the room. Don pushed him down onto the sleeping bags, and Charlie's heart began beating faster, faster yet--he'd miscalculated, Don would--but Don only touched him to cover him up, wrapping the fleece blanket tightly around him, leaving only his left arm exposed. Don rested most of his weight against Charlie, pulling Charlie's left arm straight across his lap, and Charlie shut his eyes, trying not to tense and failing miserably. There was the pinch of the needle's entry, and the steady swelling ache of the drug pushing into his body, displacing blood, overloading his veins.

He heard the clatter of the syringe striking the floor, and the pinch and ache settled to a low, slow burn in the crook of his arm.

"I'm right here," Don whispered, "I am right here."

But the handcuffs were there, too, closing first around Charlie's left wrist, and then, once Don had dug his other hand out of his wrappings, locking around his right. Charlie's hands scrabbled helplessly, uselessly, against Don's knee, and Don's hands closed around them, warm and steady but forcing him to be still all the same.

"I am right here," Don whispered again. "I am your guard. I'll be with you. It's my job."

Charlie nodded, his cheek dragging against the fleece, and Don said, "Can you walk?"

"I fall down a lot." His words were already slurring, his limbs already going heavy.

Don's arm was hard and steady around him, levering him up and tucking the blanket around him when it fell away. Charlie got a bit of it between his fingers and held on. His head sagged against Don's shoulder as Don walked him as far as the door, but at the foot of the stairs Don sighed and bent, sliding one arm behind Charlie's knees and scooping him up with a gruff murmur of, "Tuck your head, you need it."

Charlie curled obediently closer, pressing his forehead against Don's throat. He could smell Don's skin when he breathed, and if he closed his eyes and didn't think too hard, it was almost like being back in the basement, going to sleep, though he knew he wouldn't quite lose consciousness, only teeter on the foggy edge.

From a long way off he heard Williamson say, "Was there some part of 'leave everything else' that wasn't clear, Mac?" and he felt the low rumble in Don's chest as Don said something about shoes. He hadn't been told to listen, only to keep his head down, so Charlie stayed still and quiet.

Don sat staring into the dark, wondering how much time had passed. The interior of the van Williamson had hustled them into had no windows, and the door had no handle on this side. There were no seats or seatbelts, just a blank dark space, too big for Don to brace against any two sides. Don had some idea of when they sped up or slowed down or changed direction, but no idea how fast they were actually moving, or where.

The only gauge of passing time he had was his own heartbeat and Charlie's; he'd been testing them against each other periodically, and he thought Charlie's had been speeding up, getting steadier, but he had no real way of knowing. Charlie had stayed slumped half across his lap for the whole ride so far, wrapped in the blanket that Williamson hadn't taken away, though he'd given Don a nasty smirk over it.

After a few decelerations in a row--one sharp enough to wrench a startled noise from Charlie as his weight was thrown against Don--Don decided it was time to start trying to get Charlie talking. Hours might have passed by now; the dose could be starting to wear off.

Don pried Charlie upright. "Come on, genius. Time to sit up for me."

"M'a genius," Charlie mumbled against Don's arm. Don shifted his grip, tugging; Charlie was as good as dead weight, only moving in uncoordinated, unhelpful twitches.

"Math genius," he added, his head falling heavy against Don's arm as Don manhandled him into a sitting position. He sagged sideways against Don, and Don scooted closer to support him. Charlie was nearer to the door, which Don didn't like, but he didn't want to try to shift Charlie further away from it just yet.

There was another deceleration, slowing them nearly to a stop this time, Don thought, followed by a turn and a sharp acceleration, a quick heavy roar from the engine. Don slid his arm around Charlie's shoulders and squeezed.

"You awake, genius?"

"Yeah." Charlie settled his head on Don's shoulder. "'Wake."

Don tried to think of some way to check his mental state, something like the standard run of head-injury questions, tailored to a semi-sedated math genius with amnesia. Something popped into his head, a game Charlie used to try to get Don or their parents or babysitters or innocent bystanders to play with him, and Don spoke before he thought.

"Tell me a prime number," Don said, staring into the dark. The ride was bumpier now, not as fast as the highway, and as hard as he listened there was no sound from the cab. Had the men been ordered not to speak, not to listen to the radio?

"Thir'y-one," Charlie murmured obligingly. "Now you."

"Two," Don said. "Your turn."

They were slowing again, more sharply this time. Don reached out his right hand to the wall, bracing them both, hating to have his hand so far from his gun.

"Three hunnerd sev'n. Don' say three."

"Five," Don said. "Ha."

It was a full stop this time, and another quick acceleration. Charlie wiggled against him; trying to elbow him, Don thought, thwarted by the drugs and the cuffs and the blanket. Don tugged the blanket away, freeing Charlie's arms. He found Charlie's thigh with one hand, warm through his jeans, all hard, wiry muscle. He squeezed just above Charlie's knee.

"Move your feet for me."

"Eigh'y-nine," Charlie mumbled, but his legs moved, his sock feet thumping quietly against the floor. "Now--"

They turned sharply this time, at speed, and Charlie fell over toward the door, making a high startled sound as he went. Don scrambled up into a crouch over him, pushing him bodily toward the back driver's side corner. Charlie struggled feebly and Don's booted foot caught on the blanket, but after a moment he had Charlie propped there. He found Charlie's hands with his, slid his fingers against Charlie's palms as he dropped to his knees, trying to brace against the next deceleration, and said, "Squeeze."

Charlie squeezed, muttering, "three-'leven, two-six'y-three, four-oh-one."

His grip was weak, fluttering erratically, and when the van made a lateral move Charlie let go altogether, falling sideways again. Don fell back, scrambling toward the front wall as they decelerated again, on rougher terrain this time--gravel or dirt, probably an unpaved shoulder. His feet slipped on Charlie's blanket, and he grabbed it and tossed it toward where Charlie was lying.

From up front, he heard a sudden, explosive, "Fuck," and then they were braking hard.

Amid the pings and bangs of rocks striking the undercarriage Don though he could hear other, slightly more distant, percussive noises. He made his awkward way back to Charlie, who was lying against the back wall, half-covered by the blanket.

"Cover your head," Don said sharply. "Cover your head with your arms."

He heard Charlie comply, reached out a hand to confirm it, briefly squeezing the point of Charlie's elbow, and then spread the blanket over him.

"Stay still and stay quiet."

The van stopped completely, and Don managed not to fall this time, but moved himself in front of the door. The engine cut out, and in the sudden silence he heard shouting and then--yes, definitely gunshots, one, two, three shots. Handguns, but he couldn't distinguish caliber from in here. His own gun was in his hand, and he couldn't remember when he'd drawn it. He curled his finger around the trigger guard, hefting the weight of the weapon. The passenger side door opened up front, and the front quarter of the car rose slightly as someone got out. Running footsteps passed the sliding door and kept going, and two shots were fired from somewhere beyond the back of the van.

There wasn't enough shouting, Don thought. No one was yelling Stop or FBI or calling for backup. He couldn't even make out footsteps all the time, just the occasional shot, nearer or farther, and then the driver's side door opened, and more footsteps took off running, more shots were fired.

He tried to hear Charlie breathing, and couldn't. Don had told him to keep quiet; he was being very quiet now. Don's heart was pounding, his palm sweating against the grip plate of the Sig as he crouched in front of the sliding door, waiting, waiting.

Footsteps, slow and deliberate, crunched up to the door. A gun fired twice, at close range, a bang and the high whine of metal giving way, and Don couldn't help flinching. Two holes opened up near where the outside handle ought to be, letting in a faint light. He couldn't look away from them to see where the rounds had gone. His heart raced faster, waiting for a ricochet, a change of angle, waiting for the lock to give way.

Williamson's men would have a key, or would keep driving. Don could hear voices now, muttering. Two men at least. If they got the door open they'd have him and then Charlie, like fish in a barrel. Don could hear where they were standing, on what must be the shoulder of the road, some back road somewhere. There was no sound of traffic, no sirens bearing down on them despite the running gunfight going on outside. The two men outside the van were the only thing between him and Charlie and open space.

Don felt something shift in his brain, simultaneous with yet another burst of adrenaline, and his hand tightened on the gun. He knew his tactical situation. He knew his mission. He had to get the civilian to safety. That was all there was to it.

For the first time in months, Don felt utterly in control.

He sat down, bracing himself with his left hand behind him, keeping his right hand and the gun up and ready. He kicked hard at the door, rolling to his right just as another shot was fired, this one right where he'd been. Stupid of them, if they knew what was in this van, if they were after the genius; they could have hit him. So either they didn't know what they were after, or they didn't know what they were doing. Don rolled back before the sound of the shot had died, kicked again harder at the weakened lock, and this time something gave way.

He fired, one two three four five shots at the two dark figures revealed when the door slid back on the gray light before dawn. In the silence that followed Don could finally hear Charlie breathing in choked, half-muffled sobs, over the ringing in his ears.

His throat ached, and he could faintly hear someone crying, far away. He wanted to tell them to stop, but he had to be quiet. Don had said he had to keep quiet. The blanket was yanked back, but he didn't move, only cringing back against the wall. Don's voice, tinny like it was coming through a radio, said, "Stop it--genius, stop."

When Don said genius it sounded the same as Charlie, not self-negating like the way Williamson said Know-It-All. He still didn't know what Don wanted him to stop doing, though, until Don's hand pressed over his mouth and Don's mouth came right down near his ear, and he felt, "Shhhhh," against his skin more than heard it in his half-deafened ear.

"We have to move," Don said against his cheek. "Do you understand me? We have to get out of here."

Charlie nodded, his mouth dragging against Don's palm. He wasn't sure what Don wanted him to do, but he knew Don had wanted him to nod. Don's hand shifted away from his mouth, closed around one wrist and tugged. Charlie closed his eyes against the dizziness--ears, ears, his ears were broken--as Don pulled him up to his knees, dragging him forward. He shivered suddenly, violently, as the cold air washed over him and turned his head away from the light to try and find his blanket.

"Wait," he tried to say, though what he could hear of his own voice was a garbled whimper. "Wait--"

Don's hand left his wrist for a moment, and then the blanket was wadded up, stuffed into the locked circle of his arms.

"Hold on to it for now," Don said, and pulled Charlie forward again into the gray light and the sharp cold.

The floor dropped out from under him and his feet followed, but the ground beneath was uneven--no, the ground beneath was people, dead, splashed luridly with blood, torn apart--that was why he was deaf, Don's gun had fired in the tiny space, so many times, like thunder right inside his head. Don pulled him, and Charlie stumbled after, falling against him. Don caught him awkwardly, one-handed; Charlie peered across Don's body and realized that Don's right hand still held the gun out to his side, away from Charlie.

"Come on," Don said, and pulled on his wrist again.

Charlie stumbled unevenly after him. The ground was hard and cold and jagged, hurting his feet. Charlie bit his lip and clutched his blanket. He limped as fast as he could, leaning heavily on Don's grip. He didn't know how far they'd gone when he looked up from the ground--white in spots, gray-brown in others--to look around, and then he stopped dead.

The light was gray and watery, but he could see--he could see a long way, ground and more ground, a road and trees and the sky unfurling forever in all directions, dizzying, unfathomable. And it wasn't just that the air was cold, it was that it was empty, moving without encountering obstacles. He was outside.

There was a distant popping sound, and then a series of pops, somewhere behind them.

Don snarled, "Dammit."

His arm went around Charlie's back and hauled him forward again so hard that Charlie nearly fell on his face. But Don kept him upright, somehow, kept him moving, and then there was less wind, less view, less sky, more obstacles--trees.

The ground was softer, and Charlie choked off a sob of gratitude in his throat as Don ground to a halt, still holding Charlie hard to his side. Charlie pressed close, trying to rest his weight against Don, trying to warm himself against Don's body--but the air got in everywhere, even into the soft lump of his blanket in his arms. Charlie shook and shook without stopping.

"Okay," Don said, his voice dropping lower. "Okay, just a little further. Come on, Charlie, stay with me."

Don pulled him along more gently, though still quickly, into a small space where trees and bushes grew thickly. Then Don tugged the blanket out of his arms and wrapped it around Charlie, pinning his arms again. Charlie made some small sound at that, and Don said, "Shhhh, it's all right, sit down, sit down."

Don pushed, and Charlie sat. Don tucked the blanket over his feet and heaped leaves and dirt all around him--getting the blanket dirty, dulling the red--and whispered, "Stay here, all right? Stay still and stay quiet until I come back, do you understand me, Charlie? Don't move from this spot until I come back."

Charlie nodded, but Don caught his chin and held him still.

"What did I say?" Don whispered, staring into Charlie's eyes, though Charlie's own gaze tended to drift.

"Stay," Charlie murmured. The ringing was dying away from his ears, leaving a cold, empty quiet. "Stay t'you come back."

Don knew he was holding on too hard; Charlie's eyes were wide, glazed, terrorized, the scar beside his left eye standing out starkly in his pale face. Charlie didn't have enough idea of what was going on to be terrified of anything that wasn't right in front of him, and what was right in front of him was Don.

"I'll come back," Don whispered, leaned in and pressed his lips hard to Charlie's forehead.

Then Don was on his feet again, running as quietly as he could. He moved parallel to the road, back in the direction they'd been driving, watching and listening. He had to leave Charlie; he couldn't scout and drag Charlie at the same time. Charlie didn't even have shoes. He was safer staying put. Don knew that, but he couldn't help listening with all his might in that direction while he tried to see what was going on.

The stand of trees was maybe forty yards back from the road. Don could see the black van was still there, sliding door still hanging open, two dead bodies leaking red in the snow beside it. There was a sedan parked some way ahead, and a pickup truck behind, but no sign of movement anywhere along the stretch of road Don could see. Going back toward the vehicles was exactly the same problem that staying with them would have been: obvious targets to whoever had still been firing on the opposite side of the road.

If he could see where the shooters were, and who they were--if he could get some kind of grip on the larger tactical situation--then maybe he could get himself and Charlie out of here in one piece, out out out and free. Everything he'd done to Charlie a week ago would be over, would be behind them, if he could just get Charlie to safety.

Don heard a small sound. It was off to his left, not more than ten feet away, and Don froze behind the scant cover of a pair of trees, cursing his wandering attention. One step at a time: step one, don't get killed. He flexed his hand on the Sig, shifted his weight carefully. He'd been afraid he'd busted something in his right leg getting that door open, but everything worked. There was just a tingly, half-nu