FIC: Starting Over (Crimin4l Numb3rs)
Here is the next story in my Crimin4l Numb3rs series. As before, it is based on a word prompt from numb3rs100. The third word prompt (and hence the title for the next drabble in the series) is 'humanity.'
And yes, I am well aware of how little information I'm doling out with each fic :) Don't worry, the pieces will all come together, I promise.
Title: Starting Over
Series: Crimin4l Numb3rs
Author: Valerie Vancollie
Characters: Charlie
Rating: PG
Summary: A critical turning point.
Spoilers: Uncertainty Principle, All's Fair, Longshot
Timeline: Although this is the second story in the series (and should be read second), chronologically it takes place long before Conversation.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Numb3rs characters, items or situations. I only lay claim to the original aspects of the fic.
Dr. Charles Eppes threw the math journal he was attempting to read aside and sighed in frustration. He wasn't used to having such a hard time reaching a decision. Most of his life had been laid out for him since he was three years old. The schools, tutors, advanced classes, colleges, PhD program, and post-doc work all flowed smoothly and easily from one to the next. He had never had to stop and think about it, had just gone along with it. He only ever needed to suppress one desire, one fantasy, that kept recurring but which he knew to be wrong.
Yet now, now he wasn't so sure anymore despite what he'd told his brother upon getting out of the hospital. Charlie had believed that he could just return to his old life, to what he'd done before the accident, and that Don would go do the same. The only difference being that they'd have to decide where to meet for the holidays now that their parents were gone.
If they got together anymore.
Charlie's heart ached at the mere thought that he and Don would simply continue to drift apart, as they had been doing since graduating from high school, until they were nothing more than strangers with shared DNA. No, that couldn't happen. He refused to lose his big brother as well, not now that he'd lost everything else. The thing was, Don would never admit to it if he felt any similar desire, so he would simply have to take the first step and go to him; which meant leaving England and moving to Quantico where Don was currently teaching.
The biggest problem was: could he be near Don when all he wanted to do, all that he had any great desire for anymore, was illegal?