FIC: "Holding on to a lie," Part 2/? (Colby/Charlie, PG-13)
Title: "There she was"
Series: Holding on to a lie, Part 2/?
Characters: Charlie/Colby, Alan
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Colby starts to wonder about Amita's plans regarding Charlie.
Author's note: This is set after "The Connections Series" and "Not thinking about you."
Feedback: I love feedback. I'd love to hear your thoughts. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything related to it. But I do own the original ideas used and my OCs.
Beta: The amazing
irena_adler.
Previous chapter: Part 1 - "Return of a fallen angel" (Charlie/Colby, PG-13)
Holding on to a lie
Part 2: “There she was”
When Charlie and Colby got into the mathematician’s still damaged residence, there was no sign of Alan anywhere.
“Your Dad’s been cleaning up a lot,” Colby muttered, looking at the nicer atmosphere of the house, even if the room was pretty much completely destroyed. “Or maybe Don did, considering that he’s been at least two times here already today.” He was trying to make Charlie smile at the funny idea of Don doing the tasks of a housewife, and he knew that he had succeeded when his lover laughed happily.
“Probably,” Charlie responded, and then he raised his voice. “Dad? Where are you?”
A massive amount of sneeze noises came from the kitchen, and when both men went in, there it was Alan blowing his nose on a Kleenex. “Oh, sorry that I didn’t answer, guys. I have a bit of a cold.”
“Are you ok?” Charlie asked, and he looked worried about his father.
“Yeah, yeah… It’s nothing.”
“Not according to Don.”
After those words, Alan shook his head and explained, “I know, I’ve been driving him crazy all day. I tried to call you more than once, but you weren’t answering your phone.”
“I was at CalSci, working on very important curves for a theory that could be applied to a rape situation.”
“Yeah, and then Don came in, to tell you weren’t feeling all right,” Colby intervened for the first time. To some extent, he felt a little guilty that he had actually liked the fact that Charlie had put down his phone to spend some quality time with him. Maybe he had been a distraction for the mathematician when his father needed him the most.
“I take it as you were there with Charlie when that happened.” Looking a little tired, Alan suddenly sneezed again and pulled out another Kleenex from his pocket so he could blow his nose in it. “Oh, this damn cold is getting worse at every minute.”
“You know, it could get worse if you’re not careful.” Charlie lovingly put a hand on his father’s shoulder and stated, “Do you know how incredibly high the odds for a simple cold to turn into pneumonia are?”
Alan turned to his son and asked with a surprised look, “Oh, and hearing you say that is supposed to make feel better?”
That made Charlie laugh. “No, it’s not, you’re right.” He smiled at Colby, who laughed silently. “Anyways, why don’t you lie down for a while?”
“I can’t. There are tons of things to do in this house. I’ve taken care of some of them, and your brother has too, but still…”
“Dad, go to bed.”
“Yeah, Mr. Eppes, Charlie and I could help you with anything you’d like,” Colby suggested.
Even if he looked completely exhausted, Alan shook his head and insisted that he wanted to do some cleaning himself. “Oh, boys, I don’t want to bother you, I still have some energy to vacuum-” Another terrible sneeze made him and the others jump in their places. Charlie even held his father, who seemed about to faint.
“Dad, I’m not getting into a discussion with you because of this. You need to rest. We’ll take care of everything, not you, and that’s not negotiable.”
While he blew his nose yet again, Alan seemed to recognize that maybe it would be better for him to slow down. “Fine… If it’s not negotiable, what can I do?” He smiled and awkwardly walked to the bedroom.
Charlie and Colby immediately joined him, watching him get into the bed. When Alan’s son helped him to get comfortable by arranged the sheets, Colby blushed, thinking about how wonderful his lover was.
“Hey, Mr. Eppes, what needs to be done?” he asked, trying to hold the smile that wanted to make his mouth curve in an incredibly childish smirk.
“Vacuuming… and calling someone who can help me fix the house… Those are the most important tasks, for now,” Alan muttered, rubbing his eyes.
“Then don’t worry about it, it’s in our hands,” his son reassured him, patting his shoulder and then going towards the door.
When Charlie joined him and both of them walked into the kitchen, Colby couldn’t stop smiling widely and sometimes even giggling. He was so grateful that he had found someone who was so tender and caring, someone who was always so willing to help.
“He doesn’t want to stop, not for a second,” Charlie suddenly asked, smiling himself while he leaned on the counter. “Is that what’s making you smile?”
Colby opened the faucet and started to wash some dishes that had been left there. “Nah, it’s not that, not really.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing… it’s silly. I’m acting silly.” In fact, Colby felt a little overwhelmed and surprised to find himself thinking about how perfect and happy everything was between Charlie and him.
“Oh, c’mon, tell me.”
It was wonderful for Colby to feel Charlie’s lips on his cheek, asking him to talk to him. “Um… well… The reason is you, pretty much.”
“Me?” Charlie was obviously impressed in a positive way.
“Yeah. You’re a good son.”
It seemed that Colby’s words had left Charlie speechless, because the agent didn’t hear him say anything for a few seconds. But then Charlie whispered to his ear, “Thank you… You have no idea how good is hearing that from you.”
“Hey, I say what I see.”
They kissed slowly, and then Charlie stepped aside. “Maybe I should go do the vacuuming before he starts asking if it’s done already,” he said.
“That’s probably true. Remember what Don said about him making him insane with the little spots in the bathroom.”
Again, Charlie laughed. “I’d pay for photos of that,” he muttered, and left the kitchen. When he heard the sound of the vacuum cleaner, Colby smiled thinking about his lover. It felt almost natural for him to be washing the dishes while Charlie took care of something else in the house. After all that had happened in the residence, the place finally felt quiet and secure.
Five minutes later, he wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to check how Alan was, so he left the kitchen, passed by his lover and went to the bedroom. There, Charlie’s father was reading a book and luckily, he looked a little better.
“How’s everything going, Colby?” Alan said, putting down the book and taking off his glasses.
“It’s going ok. I just wanted to see how you were feeling,” Colby responded, putting his hands into his jeans’ pockets, feeling somehow weird and nervous that he was alone with his partner’s dad.
“I think I’m actually feeling better, believe it or not. It seemed Charlie was right about me needing to rest.” The man smiled sweetly. “I guess that after all these years, I should stop arguing with my genius son about that kind of things.”
“Are you taking any medication?”
After that question, Alan’s face strangely turned into a worried expression. “Yeah…”
Of course, Colby was about to ask him if he needed anything or he had a headache, but before he could do it, Charlie entered the room.
“Vacuuming will be done soon. What else do you need?”
“The dishes…” Alan started to say.
“They’re washed already,” Colby explained.
“Wow, you guys work fast.” Charlie’s father muttered, looking impressed. “Then I guess that the only thing I’d want to do now is taking some cold pills.”
It was obviously an unexpected thing to say, because Charlie immediately asked, “You went out, being sick?”
“No, no…”
“But there were no pills in the house. I was supposed to buy some today or tomorrow.”
Alan went silent.
“Dad…”
“Amita’s still in L.A.”
Colby and Charlie looked at each other. None of them was expecting Alan to say that, it was completely out of the blue.
“We know,” Alan’s son explained.
“You do? Did you talk to her?”
“Yes, we ran into her at CalSci.” Charlie still looked confused and he made a question that Colby didn’t dare to make himself, because the answer might be scary. “But wait, how do you know she’s in the city? Did you see her?”
Again, Alan didn’t say anything for a while. When he seemed to have arranged his thoughts, he explained, “She came here this morning, very early. You had already gone to the university, and Don had just left, after coming home to do some cleaning.”
“Why didn’t you let me know of that?”
Analyzing Charlie’s voice when he asked that, Colby was sure that he wasn’t mad, but curious to find out why he hadn’t been informed of such important news.
“You weren’t answering your phone. But if you had, I wouldn’t have said anything, anyway,” Alan continued. “She asked me not to. She said that she was expecting to find you here so you two could talk, but I told her that you had left early. I didn’t mention that it was because you wanted to spend some more time with Colby, of course.”
Charlie blushed, and Colby did too. Any reference made by Alan about them being together still sounded awkward and odd.
“And then she asked me to not say anything about her return until she could talk to you. She wanted to let you know herself that she was ok with you two being together, that she just needed to get used to it.”
That had to be a lie. Colby remembered well that after seeing Amita at CalSci, he had had the feeling that she had come back to mess up things, even if she assured everyone that she just trying to get back on track.
“Actually, we didn’t have time to talk to her at the university. She was meeting the board, trying to get her old job back,” Colby told Alan, trying to get some minutes for Charlie to think about what they had just discovered.
Alan seemed to be happy about Amita’s attitude. “Well, I hope she gets better. Amita’s a very sweet woman. For example, she went to buy those cold pills today.”
“She offered herself to buy them for you?” Colby snapped, because it felt like Amita was trying to win Alan’s heart and hoping that he pushed the two lovers to break up… But no, that was impossible. Alan was a good father, a caring person who would never do that.
Taking a deep breath, Colby ran his palm over his forehead. He had to relax a little. Jealously was making him seeing things that weren’t really happening.
“It was a very nice gesture from her. She seemed like the Amita I knew, the one who still hadn’t been attacked by that man, Patrick Garner,” Alan said.
“Yes, it was a nice thing for her to do,” Charlie agreed, but he suddenly left the room with a worried expression on his face.
Colby followed him with his eyes until he wasn’t there anymore. Maybe his lover was getting the same feeling he had had when they had run into Amita earlier.
“I know that this is much unexpected, but I actually think it’s for the best. It would have been worse if she had left the country without getting any help, or trying to deal with the changes,” Charlie’s father considered.
“Yes. But still, it’s weird that she’s acting so normal, like nothing had happened,” Colby muttered, letting his thoughts come out. “Anyways…” He walked towards the door.
“Go, join him. Charlie probably needs you right now. Everyone needs time and support to adjust to the fact of seeing someone that they thought was already far away.”
Silently, Colby nodded and left the bedroom. He had to support his lover and let him know that he would fight against anyone who’d try to make them break up, even if that person was Amita. That moment would never come. Colby wouldn’t let it happen.
Series: Holding on to a lie, Part 2/?
Characters: Charlie/Colby, Alan
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Colby starts to wonder about Amita's plans regarding Charlie.
Author's note: This is set after "The Connections Series" and "Not thinking about you."
Feedback: I love feedback. I'd love to hear your thoughts. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything related to it. But I do own the original ideas used and my OCs.
Beta: The amazing
irena_adler.
Previous chapter: Part 1 - "Return of a fallen angel" (Charlie/Colby, PG-13)
Holding on to a lie
Part 2: “There she was”
When Charlie and Colby got into the mathematician’s still damaged residence, there was no sign of Alan anywhere.
“Your Dad’s been cleaning up a lot,” Colby muttered, looking at the nicer atmosphere of the house, even if the room was pretty much completely destroyed. “Or maybe Don did, considering that he’s been at least two times here already today.” He was trying to make Charlie smile at the funny idea of Don doing the tasks of a housewife, and he knew that he had succeeded when his lover laughed happily.
“Probably,” Charlie responded, and then he raised his voice. “Dad? Where are you?”
A massive amount of sneeze noises came from the kitchen, and when both men went in, there it was Alan blowing his nose on a Kleenex. “Oh, sorry that I didn’t answer, guys. I have a bit of a cold.”
“Are you ok?” Charlie asked, and he looked worried about his father.
“Yeah, yeah… It’s nothing.”
“Not according to Don.”
After those words, Alan shook his head and explained, “I know, I’ve been driving him crazy all day. I tried to call you more than once, but you weren’t answering your phone.”
“I was at CalSci, working on very important curves for a theory that could be applied to a rape situation.”
“Yeah, and then Don came in, to tell you weren’t feeling all right,” Colby intervened for the first time. To some extent, he felt a little guilty that he had actually liked the fact that Charlie had put down his phone to spend some quality time with him. Maybe he had been a distraction for the mathematician when his father needed him the most.
“I take it as you were there with Charlie when that happened.” Looking a little tired, Alan suddenly sneezed again and pulled out another Kleenex from his pocket so he could blow his nose in it. “Oh, this damn cold is getting worse at every minute.”
“You know, it could get worse if you’re not careful.” Charlie lovingly put a hand on his father’s shoulder and stated, “Do you know how incredibly high the odds for a simple cold to turn into pneumonia are?”
Alan turned to his son and asked with a surprised look, “Oh, and hearing you say that is supposed to make feel better?”
That made Charlie laugh. “No, it’s not, you’re right.” He smiled at Colby, who laughed silently. “Anyways, why don’t you lie down for a while?”
“I can’t. There are tons of things to do in this house. I’ve taken care of some of them, and your brother has too, but still…”
“Dad, go to bed.”
“Yeah, Mr. Eppes, Charlie and I could help you with anything you’d like,” Colby suggested.
Even if he looked completely exhausted, Alan shook his head and insisted that he wanted to do some cleaning himself. “Oh, boys, I don’t want to bother you, I still have some energy to vacuum-” Another terrible sneeze made him and the others jump in their places. Charlie even held his father, who seemed about to faint.
“Dad, I’m not getting into a discussion with you because of this. You need to rest. We’ll take care of everything, not you, and that’s not negotiable.”
While he blew his nose yet again, Alan seemed to recognize that maybe it would be better for him to slow down. “Fine… If it’s not negotiable, what can I do?” He smiled and awkwardly walked to the bedroom.
Charlie and Colby immediately joined him, watching him get into the bed. When Alan’s son helped him to get comfortable by arranged the sheets, Colby blushed, thinking about how wonderful his lover was.
“Hey, Mr. Eppes, what needs to be done?” he asked, trying to hold the smile that wanted to make his mouth curve in an incredibly childish smirk.
“Vacuuming… and calling someone who can help me fix the house… Those are the most important tasks, for now,” Alan muttered, rubbing his eyes.
“Then don’t worry about it, it’s in our hands,” his son reassured him, patting his shoulder and then going towards the door.
When Charlie joined him and both of them walked into the kitchen, Colby couldn’t stop smiling widely and sometimes even giggling. He was so grateful that he had found someone who was so tender and caring, someone who was always so willing to help.
“He doesn’t want to stop, not for a second,” Charlie suddenly asked, smiling himself while he leaned on the counter. “Is that what’s making you smile?”
Colby opened the faucet and started to wash some dishes that had been left there. “Nah, it’s not that, not really.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing… it’s silly. I’m acting silly.” In fact, Colby felt a little overwhelmed and surprised to find himself thinking about how perfect and happy everything was between Charlie and him.
“Oh, c’mon, tell me.”
It was wonderful for Colby to feel Charlie’s lips on his cheek, asking him to talk to him. “Um… well… The reason is you, pretty much.”
“Me?” Charlie was obviously impressed in a positive way.
“Yeah. You’re a good son.”
It seemed that Colby’s words had left Charlie speechless, because the agent didn’t hear him say anything for a few seconds. But then Charlie whispered to his ear, “Thank you… You have no idea how good is hearing that from you.”
“Hey, I say what I see.”
They kissed slowly, and then Charlie stepped aside. “Maybe I should go do the vacuuming before he starts asking if it’s done already,” he said.
“That’s probably true. Remember what Don said about him making him insane with the little spots in the bathroom.”
Again, Charlie laughed. “I’d pay for photos of that,” he muttered, and left the kitchen. When he heard the sound of the vacuum cleaner, Colby smiled thinking about his lover. It felt almost natural for him to be washing the dishes while Charlie took care of something else in the house. After all that had happened in the residence, the place finally felt quiet and secure.
Five minutes later, he wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to check how Alan was, so he left the kitchen, passed by his lover and went to the bedroom. There, Charlie’s father was reading a book and luckily, he looked a little better.
“How’s everything going, Colby?” Alan said, putting down the book and taking off his glasses.
“It’s going ok. I just wanted to see how you were feeling,” Colby responded, putting his hands into his jeans’ pockets, feeling somehow weird and nervous that he was alone with his partner’s dad.
“I think I’m actually feeling better, believe it or not. It seemed Charlie was right about me needing to rest.” The man smiled sweetly. “I guess that after all these years, I should stop arguing with my genius son about that kind of things.”
“Are you taking any medication?”
After that question, Alan’s face strangely turned into a worried expression. “Yeah…”
Of course, Colby was about to ask him if he needed anything or he had a headache, but before he could do it, Charlie entered the room.
“Vacuuming will be done soon. What else do you need?”
“The dishes…” Alan started to say.
“They’re washed already,” Colby explained.
“Wow, you guys work fast.” Charlie’s father muttered, looking impressed. “Then I guess that the only thing I’d want to do now is taking some cold pills.”
It was obviously an unexpected thing to say, because Charlie immediately asked, “You went out, being sick?”
“No, no…”
“But there were no pills in the house. I was supposed to buy some today or tomorrow.”
Alan went silent.
“Dad…”
“Amita’s still in L.A.”
Colby and Charlie looked at each other. None of them was expecting Alan to say that, it was completely out of the blue.
“We know,” Alan’s son explained.
“You do? Did you talk to her?”
“Yes, we ran into her at CalSci.” Charlie still looked confused and he made a question that Colby didn’t dare to make himself, because the answer might be scary. “But wait, how do you know she’s in the city? Did you see her?”
Again, Alan didn’t say anything for a while. When he seemed to have arranged his thoughts, he explained, “She came here this morning, very early. You had already gone to the university, and Don had just left, after coming home to do some cleaning.”
“Why didn’t you let me know of that?”
Analyzing Charlie’s voice when he asked that, Colby was sure that he wasn’t mad, but curious to find out why he hadn’t been informed of such important news.
“You weren’t answering your phone. But if you had, I wouldn’t have said anything, anyway,” Alan continued. “She asked me not to. She said that she was expecting to find you here so you two could talk, but I told her that you had left early. I didn’t mention that it was because you wanted to spend some more time with Colby, of course.”
Charlie blushed, and Colby did too. Any reference made by Alan about them being together still sounded awkward and odd.
“And then she asked me to not say anything about her return until she could talk to you. She wanted to let you know herself that she was ok with you two being together, that she just needed to get used to it.”
That had to be a lie. Colby remembered well that after seeing Amita at CalSci, he had had the feeling that she had come back to mess up things, even if she assured everyone that she just trying to get back on track.
“Actually, we didn’t have time to talk to her at the university. She was meeting the board, trying to get her old job back,” Colby told Alan, trying to get some minutes for Charlie to think about what they had just discovered.
Alan seemed to be happy about Amita’s attitude. “Well, I hope she gets better. Amita’s a very sweet woman. For example, she went to buy those cold pills today.”
“She offered herself to buy them for you?” Colby snapped, because it felt like Amita was trying to win Alan’s heart and hoping that he pushed the two lovers to break up… But no, that was impossible. Alan was a good father, a caring person who would never do that.
Taking a deep breath, Colby ran his palm over his forehead. He had to relax a little. Jealously was making him seeing things that weren’t really happening.
“It was a very nice gesture from her. She seemed like the Amita I knew, the one who still hadn’t been attacked by that man, Patrick Garner,” Alan said.
“Yes, it was a nice thing for her to do,” Charlie agreed, but he suddenly left the room with a worried expression on his face.
Colby followed him with his eyes until he wasn’t there anymore. Maybe his lover was getting the same feeling he had had when they had run into Amita earlier.
“I know that this is much unexpected, but I actually think it’s for the best. It would have been worse if she had left the country without getting any help, or trying to deal with the changes,” Charlie’s father considered.
“Yes. But still, it’s weird that she’s acting so normal, like nothing had happened,” Colby muttered, letting his thoughts come out. “Anyways…” He walked towards the door.
“Go, join him. Charlie probably needs you right now. Everyone needs time and support to adjust to the fact of seeing someone that they thought was already far away.”
Silently, Colby nodded and left the bedroom. He had to support his lover and let him know that he would fight against anyone who’d try to make them break up, even if that person was Amita. That moment would never come. Colby wouldn’t let it happen.