FIC: In a Mirror, Darkly: Chapter 3/?
This fic was written for the Angst vs Schmoop Challenge at numb3rswriteoff. After you’ve read the fic, please rate it by voting in the poll located here. (Your vote will be anonymous.) Rate the fic on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being the best) using the following criteria: how well the fic fit the prompt (decision), how angsty the fic was, and how well you enjoyed the fic. When you’re done, please check out the other challenge fic at numb3rswriteoff. Thank you!
Title: In a Mirror, Darkly: Chapter 3
Author: Valerie Vancollie (valeriev84 [at] hotmail.com)
Characters: Charlie, Don
Pairings: brief canon mentions of Charlie/Amita & Don/Robin
Rating: 15
Summary: There was a certain irony to the situation, that the brother who was a federal agent had been abducted to be used as leverage against the brother who was an applied mathematics professor at a highly respected college.
Betas: aleo_70 & fredbassett
Spoilers: Uncertainty Principle, Vector, Man Hunt, Dark Matter, Finders Keepers, Breaking Point, Black Swan, When Worlds Collide, The Decoy Effect, The Fifth Man, Greatest Hits, Angels and Devils
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Numb3rs characters, items or situations. I only lay claim to the original aspects of the fic.
Part I: Charlie: NSA
Chapter 3:
Sunday, 23:54
Dr. Charles Eppes' Office, CalSci
'Oh, one more thing, Dr. Eppes,' Banner's voice still looped round in Charlie's mind long after the man himself had left him alone. 'You are not to inform anyone of this, do you understand?'
Charlie could still feel the helplessness that had swamped him at the instruction, knowing only all too well what would follow it.
'If we even suspect that you've been talking with anyone about what you know, or that you've shown the photos to any of your dear brother's colleagues, he will be the one to suffer the consequences.'
The piece of chalk he held in his hand snapped in two as anger flooded him and his fists clenched involuntarily. Whereas Charlie had only felt fear and desperation then, he'd now added rage to those emotions even as the fear slowly morphed into terror. Banner had taken his earlier estimate as a deadline, adding that Don would be beaten or otherwise hurt for any delays. The threat had served to make him hyper aware of the clocks in his office and exactly how quickly time seemed to fly by as he desperately tried to break the encryption and security codes.
Whenever he felt the frustration threatening to swap him and drag him under in a wave of unrelated numbers and the elusive P vs. NP he had such a love-hate relationship with, Charlie would force himself to look at the two Polaroids Banner had left with him and which he'd taped to the side of the main blackboard he was using. The contrast between the ordered and logical mathematical expressions and algorithms written in white chalk on black slate against the red blood and blue bruises on his brother's skin sent a shock jolting through him every time he looked at them.
It was now, as he was looking at the photos without the element of the initial shock and horror, that Charlie noticed something he'd missed earlier. In both pictures Don's expression was grim but defiant. The look in his eyes was similar to one he had seen a million times, but harsher than he'd ever witnessed. It was the same one Don got whenever he was digging in his heels, determined to resist, no matter the cost. Only now it was fused with a controlled rage the likes of which Charlie had never seen before in his brother's eyes. On some level it chilled him, but it nonetheless managed to bring a fond smile to his face.
"Oh, Donny," Charlie whispered, voice hoarse.
Trust Don to resist, even in such obvious peril, when temperance was most definitely the better course of action. A lick of anger was set alight within Charlie at the thought. Why did his brother always have to play the damn hero? To be strong even when it was clearly only going to get him hurt? Why couldn't he, just for once, react like a normal person and not draw attention to himself by all but daring his captors to hurt him with that look? Why couldn't he just keep his defiance hidden for once and allow himself to be rescued?
Charlie froze in horror as the answer to the last question dawned on him.
Don had said that he had plans for the weekend, but his asking his little brother not to let Robin know about them clearly indicated that she was unaware of them. This meant that Robin might not even have known that her boyfriend had the weekend off, depending on how secretive Don had been. If he'd had plans with Robin, Don would also not have made any with anyone else, meaning that no one would have missed him when he'd been kidnapped by whoever Banner was working with.
Eyes darting to the clock confirmed Charlie's suspicion that it was still Sunday evening, if only just. The horror he'd felt upon seeing the first Polaroid was back as he realized that it was quite possible that no one else even knew yet that Don was missing, let alone being held captive against his will and being... His mind tried to shy away from the thought, but with a concerted effort he forced himself to meet it head on. Tortured. Don was being tortured and it was happening because of him and his math. They were torturing Don so that he would solve this damn problem for them.
A wave of anguish and despair washed over him. What was he going to do? Charlie knew he lost most of his perspective when he was emotionally invested in a case. Don's 'Look, I've seen this happen to you over and over again, the stress gets too close to home and you don't see straight, you check out' just recently when Amita had been taken proved that it wasn't something he was imagining. He also had no doubt that he'd probably been the last one to realize it.
Amita. Don.
Why was this happening again? Wasn't it enough that his fiancée had so recently been abducted, did it really have to happen to his brother so soon afterwards? At least then he'd been able to rely on Don. The fact that he'd had his cell phone out and had hit the appropriate speed dial for his older brother before he'd even realized it said it all about who he turned to in this type of situation. In some form or another, it had always been Don who he turned too, even when they were fighting as kids or when they'd been separated by a gulf larger than he currently wanted to think about. His first instinct had always been to call Don. Now, however, it was Don who needed his help. Don who was in trouble and needed rescuing and it was all his fault.
This brought him right back around to the fact that, chances were, no one else even knew what had happened. It was nearly incomprehensible to Charlie that his whole world could have been shattered so suddenly and that no one but himself and Don were any the wiser. To think that everyone- Robin, Dad, David, Colby and Nikki- was just going about their usual business while Don was being kept prisoner somewhere, maybe even being hurt right now, was mind-boggling. Some of them might even be thinking negatively of his big brother at the moment, their father and Robin in particular, for the fact that he hadn't called them this weekend.
Charlie's mind froze as the implications of his last thought hit him. His mouth dried suddenly as he looked back down at the photo and realized that, yes, Don was wearing the same baby blue dress shirt he'd had on when he'd stopped by Friday evening. Which meant that he'd never made it home after he left this very office. He resisted the urge to rush outside and see if he could find his brother's car in the parking lot. It didn't matter if he'd been kidnapped from CalSci itself or somewhere else along the way, what mattered was that he'd been taken sometime Friday evening and he himself had been completely unaware of it until earlier tonight when Banner had produced the photos.
Forty-eight hours.
Don had been abducted, tortured and imprisoned for nearly two full days before anyone had even become aware of it. The first forty-eight hours were the most critical in any kidnapping case. Had that been deliberate? Had they specially planned it out that way or was that just when the best opportunity had presented itself? Charlie knew that attacking a federal agent was not a task to be undertaken lightly, not only were they specially trained, but they were armed. Not that either had apparently done Don any good.
He shoved the uncharitable thought aside instantly. Don had probably been caught completely unaware. This, this had nothing to do with his brother, it had to do with him and thus it was not something Don could have predicted or taken precautionary steps against. Banner and the others, however, had known exactly what they were doing. They'd known who and what their target was and how he was likely to react and that he'd be armed. They'd have known all of this and factored it into their plan; they'd have compensated for it.
Don hadn't stood a chance.
The mere image of Don being ambushed like that, or indeed of anyone even planning to attack his brother in that manner made Charlie's knees buckle and he reached for his chair and collapsed into it. The thoughts inevitably led him back to the one thing he'd struggled so hard not to think about. The torture. Banner had said they'd continue to hurt Don as long as it took him to hack this system, whatever it was. He'd already vomited into his trash earlier when he'd been unable to tear his thoughts away from what had been done to his brother and he struggled now in order to prevent a repeat of that, knowing he had nothing left in his stomach but bile.
Even as he wrestled with that, a part of Charlie's mind was occupied with another decision altogether. He'd tried to avoid thinking about it earlier, not wanting to distract himself from the line of thought he had going, but it refused to be suppressed now that he'd realized no one else was yet aware of what had happened to Don. The most critical window of time had already passed since the kidnapping, but the FBI wouldn't know that come Monday morning when they finally discovered that something had happened to their Violent Crimes Squad supervisor.
Yes, Banner had said that he couldn't say anything to Don's team, but it wasn't going to be that simple once they realized Don had vanished. David was going to do everything he possibly could to find his boss and one of the first things that would entail would be to contact himself and his father. While he could act like he knew nothing over the phone, it was the subsequent visit or request to join them at the FBI offices that worried him. Although David and Colby couldn't read him as well as his brother, he was sure they'd quickly come to see something wasn't quite right.
Even if his worry about what the people Banner was working with were doing to Don was interpreted simply as concern over Don's unexplained disappearance, they'd surely ask him to help them. What was he to say then? How could he possibly explain that he couldn't help them? Well, his breakdown during Amita's abduction might actually be helpful in that area as they were sure to know that he wouldn't be able to help them very much, but that still left him with the need to explain that he had to return to, or remain at, CalSci.
It was with a start that Charlie discovered that he'd already decided not to let them know what had really happened to Don. Either by calling them now and alerting them to the situation immediately or when they were sure to press him for any information he might possess about what could have happened to his brother. He could practically see Don's disapproving frown aimed at him at the thought, but he wasn't sure that he could change his mind on this particular topic. Not with what Banner had said they'd do to Don if they discovered that he'd deliberately disobeyed their orders.
Yes, he knew it was better to report abductions to the authorities than to try and deal with them on your own, but this was hardly a normal kidnapping. Well, if there was such a thing as a normal kidnapping. This time at least one of the people involved was a federal agent working for the NSA. While he still couldn't quite believe that Banner had turned against everything he'd used to stand for, he did know exactly what that meant. The man knew all about normal procedures in cases like this and was an expert in covert surveillance.
The fact that Banner had turned up at precisely the right time to reveal to him that they'd kidnapped and assaulted Don proved that they were probably monitoring him quite closely. Charlie had to fight the urge to start looking about his office for fear of giving away the fact that he knew they were watching him. It might come in handy later on.
The other thing holding him back from going to David and the team was the knowledge that they might well prevent him from working on the problem and giving Banner what he desired. They'd waste valuable time trying to uncover exactly what the security features protected and while he didn't doubt that they'd try to set up something similar to the fake site they'd used to convince Duryea that Amita had hacked into the Farmer's American Bank, it would take time. Precious time which Don simply might not have.
A quick glance at the nearest clock sent Charlie leaping to his feet, cursing the time he'd wasted just sitting there. He didn't have the luxury of contemplating the best way to handle David, Colby or Nikki when they came. He'd just have to cross that particular bridge when he came to it, but for now he had to continue working on the algorithms Banner wanted broken.
It wasn't until later, when he was already writing expressions on the board, that Charlie realized what he'd said when he'd spoken aloud so briefly earlier.
Donny.
It was an old nickname and one that both he and his parents had used years ago when he and Don were both still kids. As a toddler, he'd stubbornly refused to call his brother anything else despite the fact that Don was clearly easier to pronounce than Donny. It had stuck even after Don had reached the stage where he saw himself as too old for nicknames and loudly expressed his wish to only be called Don.
Charlie could only all too easily recall the last time he had called his brother Donny. It had been in high school. He hadn't meant to, but the nickname had accidentally slipped out when his brother's friends had been around and it had been too juicy a piece of information for them to simply let lie. Even now, nearly two decades later, he cringed at the memory of the glare Don had sent him. He hadn't bothered to say anything, but then, he hadn't had to.
It was with a sudden strange desire that Charlie desperately hoped that he'd get that particular glare once again. He didn't want Don so very angry with him, but if he were to receive it once more, then that meant his brother was not only alive to deliver it, but with him as well and that was all he wanted at the moment.
Chapter 4
Please remember to go rate these three chapters here. They are the Team Angst entry for the word prompt decision. Thanks!
Title: In a Mirror, Darkly: Chapter 3
Author: Valerie Vancollie (valeriev84 [at] hotmail.com)
Characters: Charlie, Don
Pairings: brief canon mentions of Charlie/Amita & Don/Robin
Rating: 15
Summary: There was a certain irony to the situation, that the brother who was a federal agent had been abducted to be used as leverage against the brother who was an applied mathematics professor at a highly respected college.
Betas: aleo_70 & fredbassett
Spoilers: Uncertainty Principle, Vector, Man Hunt, Dark Matter, Finders Keepers, Breaking Point, Black Swan, When Worlds Collide, The Decoy Effect, The Fifth Man, Greatest Hits, Angels and Devils
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Numb3rs characters, items or situations. I only lay claim to the original aspects of the fic.
Part I: Charlie: NSA
Chapter 3:
Sunday, 23:54
Dr. Charles Eppes' Office, CalSci
'Oh, one more thing, Dr. Eppes,' Banner's voice still looped round in Charlie's mind long after the man himself had left him alone. 'You are not to inform anyone of this, do you understand?'
Charlie could still feel the helplessness that had swamped him at the instruction, knowing only all too well what would follow it.
'If we even suspect that you've been talking with anyone about what you know, or that you've shown the photos to any of your dear brother's colleagues, he will be the one to suffer the consequences.'
The piece of chalk he held in his hand snapped in two as anger flooded him and his fists clenched involuntarily. Whereas Charlie had only felt fear and desperation then, he'd now added rage to those emotions even as the fear slowly morphed into terror. Banner had taken his earlier estimate as a deadline, adding that Don would be beaten or otherwise hurt for any delays. The threat had served to make him hyper aware of the clocks in his office and exactly how quickly time seemed to fly by as he desperately tried to break the encryption and security codes.
Whenever he felt the frustration threatening to swap him and drag him under in a wave of unrelated numbers and the elusive P vs. NP he had such a love-hate relationship with, Charlie would force himself to look at the two Polaroids Banner had left with him and which he'd taped to the side of the main blackboard he was using. The contrast between the ordered and logical mathematical expressions and algorithms written in white chalk on black slate against the red blood and blue bruises on his brother's skin sent a shock jolting through him every time he looked at them.
It was now, as he was looking at the photos without the element of the initial shock and horror, that Charlie noticed something he'd missed earlier. In both pictures Don's expression was grim but defiant. The look in his eyes was similar to one he had seen a million times, but harsher than he'd ever witnessed. It was the same one Don got whenever he was digging in his heels, determined to resist, no matter the cost. Only now it was fused with a controlled rage the likes of which Charlie had never seen before in his brother's eyes. On some level it chilled him, but it nonetheless managed to bring a fond smile to his face.
"Oh, Donny," Charlie whispered, voice hoarse.
Trust Don to resist, even in such obvious peril, when temperance was most definitely the better course of action. A lick of anger was set alight within Charlie at the thought. Why did his brother always have to play the damn hero? To be strong even when it was clearly only going to get him hurt? Why couldn't he, just for once, react like a normal person and not draw attention to himself by all but daring his captors to hurt him with that look? Why couldn't he just keep his defiance hidden for once and allow himself to be rescued?
Charlie froze in horror as the answer to the last question dawned on him.
Don had said that he had plans for the weekend, but his asking his little brother not to let Robin know about them clearly indicated that she was unaware of them. This meant that Robin might not even have known that her boyfriend had the weekend off, depending on how secretive Don had been. If he'd had plans with Robin, Don would also not have made any with anyone else, meaning that no one would have missed him when he'd been kidnapped by whoever Banner was working with.
Eyes darting to the clock confirmed Charlie's suspicion that it was still Sunday evening, if only just. The horror he'd felt upon seeing the first Polaroid was back as he realized that it was quite possible that no one else even knew yet that Don was missing, let alone being held captive against his will and being... His mind tried to shy away from the thought, but with a concerted effort he forced himself to meet it head on. Tortured. Don was being tortured and it was happening because of him and his math. They were torturing Don so that he would solve this damn problem for them.
A wave of anguish and despair washed over him. What was he going to do? Charlie knew he lost most of his perspective when he was emotionally invested in a case. Don's 'Look, I've seen this happen to you over and over again, the stress gets too close to home and you don't see straight, you check out' just recently when Amita had been taken proved that it wasn't something he was imagining. He also had no doubt that he'd probably been the last one to realize it.
Amita. Don.
Why was this happening again? Wasn't it enough that his fiancée had so recently been abducted, did it really have to happen to his brother so soon afterwards? At least then he'd been able to rely on Don. The fact that he'd had his cell phone out and had hit the appropriate speed dial for his older brother before he'd even realized it said it all about who he turned to in this type of situation. In some form or another, it had always been Don who he turned too, even when they were fighting as kids or when they'd been separated by a gulf larger than he currently wanted to think about. His first instinct had always been to call Don. Now, however, it was Don who needed his help. Don who was in trouble and needed rescuing and it was all his fault.
This brought him right back around to the fact that, chances were, no one else even knew what had happened. It was nearly incomprehensible to Charlie that his whole world could have been shattered so suddenly and that no one but himself and Don were any the wiser. To think that everyone- Robin, Dad, David, Colby and Nikki- was just going about their usual business while Don was being kept prisoner somewhere, maybe even being hurt right now, was mind-boggling. Some of them might even be thinking negatively of his big brother at the moment, their father and Robin in particular, for the fact that he hadn't called them this weekend.
Charlie's mind froze as the implications of his last thought hit him. His mouth dried suddenly as he looked back down at the photo and realized that, yes, Don was wearing the same baby blue dress shirt he'd had on when he'd stopped by Friday evening. Which meant that he'd never made it home after he left this very office. He resisted the urge to rush outside and see if he could find his brother's car in the parking lot. It didn't matter if he'd been kidnapped from CalSci itself or somewhere else along the way, what mattered was that he'd been taken sometime Friday evening and he himself had been completely unaware of it until earlier tonight when Banner had produced the photos.
Forty-eight hours.
Don had been abducted, tortured and imprisoned for nearly two full days before anyone had even become aware of it. The first forty-eight hours were the most critical in any kidnapping case. Had that been deliberate? Had they specially planned it out that way or was that just when the best opportunity had presented itself? Charlie knew that attacking a federal agent was not a task to be undertaken lightly, not only were they specially trained, but they were armed. Not that either had apparently done Don any good.
He shoved the uncharitable thought aside instantly. Don had probably been caught completely unaware. This, this had nothing to do with his brother, it had to do with him and thus it was not something Don could have predicted or taken precautionary steps against. Banner and the others, however, had known exactly what they were doing. They'd known who and what their target was and how he was likely to react and that he'd be armed. They'd have known all of this and factored it into their plan; they'd have compensated for it.
Don hadn't stood a chance.
The mere image of Don being ambushed like that, or indeed of anyone even planning to attack his brother in that manner made Charlie's knees buckle and he reached for his chair and collapsed into it. The thoughts inevitably led him back to the one thing he'd struggled so hard not to think about. The torture. Banner had said they'd continue to hurt Don as long as it took him to hack this system, whatever it was. He'd already vomited into his trash earlier when he'd been unable to tear his thoughts away from what had been done to his brother and he struggled now in order to prevent a repeat of that, knowing he had nothing left in his stomach but bile.
Even as he wrestled with that, a part of Charlie's mind was occupied with another decision altogether. He'd tried to avoid thinking about it earlier, not wanting to distract himself from the line of thought he had going, but it refused to be suppressed now that he'd realized no one else was yet aware of what had happened to Don. The most critical window of time had already passed since the kidnapping, but the FBI wouldn't know that come Monday morning when they finally discovered that something had happened to their Violent Crimes Squad supervisor.
Yes, Banner had said that he couldn't say anything to Don's team, but it wasn't going to be that simple once they realized Don had vanished. David was going to do everything he possibly could to find his boss and one of the first things that would entail would be to contact himself and his father. While he could act like he knew nothing over the phone, it was the subsequent visit or request to join them at the FBI offices that worried him. Although David and Colby couldn't read him as well as his brother, he was sure they'd quickly come to see something wasn't quite right.
Even if his worry about what the people Banner was working with were doing to Don was interpreted simply as concern over Don's unexplained disappearance, they'd surely ask him to help them. What was he to say then? How could he possibly explain that he couldn't help them? Well, his breakdown during Amita's abduction might actually be helpful in that area as they were sure to know that he wouldn't be able to help them very much, but that still left him with the need to explain that he had to return to, or remain at, CalSci.
It was with a start that Charlie discovered that he'd already decided not to let them know what had really happened to Don. Either by calling them now and alerting them to the situation immediately or when they were sure to press him for any information he might possess about what could have happened to his brother. He could practically see Don's disapproving frown aimed at him at the thought, but he wasn't sure that he could change his mind on this particular topic. Not with what Banner had said they'd do to Don if they discovered that he'd deliberately disobeyed their orders.
Yes, he knew it was better to report abductions to the authorities than to try and deal with them on your own, but this was hardly a normal kidnapping. Well, if there was such a thing as a normal kidnapping. This time at least one of the people involved was a federal agent working for the NSA. While he still couldn't quite believe that Banner had turned against everything he'd used to stand for, he did know exactly what that meant. The man knew all about normal procedures in cases like this and was an expert in covert surveillance.
The fact that Banner had turned up at precisely the right time to reveal to him that they'd kidnapped and assaulted Don proved that they were probably monitoring him quite closely. Charlie had to fight the urge to start looking about his office for fear of giving away the fact that he knew they were watching him. It might come in handy later on.
The other thing holding him back from going to David and the team was the knowledge that they might well prevent him from working on the problem and giving Banner what he desired. They'd waste valuable time trying to uncover exactly what the security features protected and while he didn't doubt that they'd try to set up something similar to the fake site they'd used to convince Duryea that Amita had hacked into the Farmer's American Bank, it would take time. Precious time which Don simply might not have.
A quick glance at the nearest clock sent Charlie leaping to his feet, cursing the time he'd wasted just sitting there. He didn't have the luxury of contemplating the best way to handle David, Colby or Nikki when they came. He'd just have to cross that particular bridge when he came to it, but for now he had to continue working on the algorithms Banner wanted broken.
It wasn't until later, when he was already writing expressions on the board, that Charlie realized what he'd said when he'd spoken aloud so briefly earlier.
Donny.
It was an old nickname and one that both he and his parents had used years ago when he and Don were both still kids. As a toddler, he'd stubbornly refused to call his brother anything else despite the fact that Don was clearly easier to pronounce than Donny. It had stuck even after Don had reached the stage where he saw himself as too old for nicknames and loudly expressed his wish to only be called Don.
Charlie could only all too easily recall the last time he had called his brother Donny. It had been in high school. He hadn't meant to, but the nickname had accidentally slipped out when his brother's friends had been around and it had been too juicy a piece of information for them to simply let lie. Even now, nearly two decades later, he cringed at the memory of the glare Don had sent him. He hadn't bothered to say anything, but then, he hadn't had to.
It was with a sudden strange desire that Charlie desperately hoped that he'd get that particular glare once again. He didn't want Don so very angry with him, but if he were to receive it once more, then that meant his brother was not only alive to deliver it, but with him as well and that was all he wanted at the moment.
Chapter 4
Please remember to go rate these three chapters here. They are the Team Angst entry for the word prompt decision. Thanks!