Apologies to anyone who has been following this story. Computer problems meant I wasn't able to post this last chapter till now and it feels like an anti-climax. At least this is the last chapter finally.
Sleep had claimed Don for a solid 12 hours. It made Charlie as frustrated as hell. After his father had spoken to Don, Charlie was itching to get up there and talk to his brother. It wasn't just that he couldn't keep secrets, he was desperate to find them out as well. Part of this was what led him to be so involved in his math – the discovery – but part of it was just the fact he was a little brother.
"Charlie. Not till he wakes up." Alan peered over his glasses at the image of his youngest son tapping his fingers on the touchpad of his laptop, deep in thought.
"Fine." Charlie looked over at his dad. "No. Not fine. Are you sure he's gonna be..."
"Charlie, he's fine. He knows how we feel, I don't want him to feel worse by hammering that into him. I want him to get better. I want him to seek help. Besides, when hasn't he ever been fine." He paused before adding, "Until this glitch."
Charlie pondered this. It was true. Don was always fine. Charlie was occasionally tuned in to his emotions from his immersion in his world but he still never more than scratched the surface. Don pulled himself along just fine. Until now.
Charlie finally stopped thinking about Don and started thinking about a problem he could solve. How to get a call linked up to Larry for his birthday. He began to type an email to Larry's contact at NASA who said he'd help.
"The game on?"
Alan and Charlie noticeably jumped.
"What the hell are you doing downstairs?" Alan enquired while jumping to his feet.
Don was standing only through the support of the wall at the end of the stairs. His cheeks were flushed slightly pink from the effort it had taken him to come down the stairs. Surprisingly, ignoring the sweat, he looked better for it. He made an attempt to move towards one of the chairs by the television as he spoke. "Bored. Please don't make me go back up there."
Alan gave Don a warning glare. He knew what he was doing. Don was making an effort. And if he was making an effort, even if he physically shouldn't have been, it meant he was making an effort to get out of the black pit he'd fallen in. Things would be OK. "Fine. But you don't move from the chair. After Charlie told me about how much sweat a sick person releases into the sheets during an average day I can't say I blame you."
Charlie jumped up to help his father guide Don to the chair. Don was about to protest but he bit his lip. His conversation with his father the previous day had gotten to him. He'd spent time thinking about the effect he was having on his family. On Charlie especially, he had begun to feel guilty about doing it. He then thought about how much pain his father had been through in his life and thought he was selfish to be doing this to them. He couldn't stop feeling the way he did. There was nothing he could do about his depression. There I've said it. But the fact he wanted to stop doing this to his family. Well, he knew enough about behaviour to know that meant he was on the way up.
The hours he'd spent on the bed thinking had brought clarity. He knew nothing could help resolve his feelings over killing people. He knew that. But he also knew that he had to go on living so he had to find a way. That in itself was good. It meant he was ready. God. I can't believe I am thinking this. It meant he would go willingly to the FBI shrink and try and work with them over this. Not that he wouldn't have before, but before this happened, he just didn't want to acknowledge that he had sunk so deep. He knew the grief of losing a human life from both sides and he knew that only he held the answers because in truth, there simply weren't that many people alive who could help him.
Now, all he wanted was to feel normal again. For a few seconds he had felt glad he didn't have a tumour. This is the start of the hill.
All this swum through his head as he had been walked to the chair by his family. It was a few minutes before he realised Charlie was staring at him out the corner of his eye.
"What Chuck?"
"Don't call me that."
"Then don't sneak peeks. What do you want?"
"I." Charlie had been caught out and he still couldn't understand why after all these years of being caught out he'd never come up with a sufficient comeback for his brother. "I'm. Just checking my periphery vision actually. It works fine thanks for asking. Sorry you happened to be in the way while I was doing it."
"Always were crap at not being obvious buddy. And, for a genius, boy do you suck big time at lies."
"Yeah well not all of us have FBI training at keeping secrets."
This comment hung in the air. Tension sparked. Alan stopped doing his sudoku puzzle to look over at his boys. Ready to jump in and defuse the situation if needed. If needed.
Don stared back from the television at his little brother and began to shake his head. His face omitting any signs of laughter it had previously contained. Charlie swallowed fearing he'd caused Don to go two steps backwards. He looked over to Alan who was also slightly shaking his head at him.
Don finished shaking his head and looked down into his lap. "And to think," he began before looking up into Charlie's eyes, "how the hell did you get security clearance above mine? Honestly there's something not right with the world."
Charlie let out a breath of anxiety he'd been holding. The old Don was back. At least he was making an effort.
Don stayed in the chair and watched a baseball game while his brother and father tried their best to be normal around him. It was all unspoken but every single one was tuned in to the fact that Don was ready to move on and so nobody please speak about it again because it was being sorted.
Even though it was an exciting game. Don drifted off to sleep before the end.
"Should we move him?" Charlie looked across to his father who had begun making dinner for the evening and had just come back in from the kitchen.
"Hmm." Alan looked at Don. It couldn't be comfortable but he really didn't want to disturb him while he was sleeping. "Look dinner will be ready soon. How bout we wake him then and he can decide what he wants to do."
Charlie got up and walked across to his father. He whispered just in case he'd wake up Don. "Seriously, do you think he's OK?"
"Charlie. He will be. Depressed people don't make an effort to join their families downstairs. I think we can take that as a sign. He's accepted the fact that we know he thought he had a tumour and that maybe next time it's not the best course of action to take to keep it from us. I don't know what more we can do other than to be here for him if he needs us. And I'm not saying he will Charlie either!"
Charlie sighed. His dad was right. He looked back over to Don. All they could see was the back of his head resting on the chair. "He's not getting out of this that lightly."
Alan waved a finger at Charlie. "Don't you go antoginizing him. He needs rest. He's still got a couple of days of bed rest ordered for him. And I intend to take advantage of that." Alan smirked and walked back into the kitchen.
"Don." Fingers lightly squeezed his shoulder and shook it. Don was still hovering in a dream and so he didn't react first go. "Don. Dinner."
Gradually an eye opened and he looked up to see Charlie grinning in his face. "What?"
"Dinner. Do you want some or do you want to go back up to bed. I hear that's where most people prefer to sleep. In a bed."
"Dinner huh. What kind of dinner?"
Alan barged through the kitchen door with the last of the food. "It's meat and veg Donnie. And you need to eat something."
Charlie looked down at Don trying to read his sleepy features.
"I guess I could be hungry."
"Alright then, I'll make you a plate. You gonna be OK to eat on your lap?" Alan enquired.
"Nah, I'll sit at the table with you guys. I'm not an invalid."
"Well actually Don technically you are." Charlie smirked.
"Oh really. Well this invalid can still kick your butt. I'm coming."
Alan was unsure if Don should be sitting up at the table with them but he didn't want to push anything. Besides he felt Don's newfound jovialness was a sign that he was getting better. The infection was on the way out and clearly Don was coming out of a fog of sickness that hadn't made him think straight. Of course, Alan didn't want to do anything to push him back into illness and therefore the depression. "I don't know Don."
Don cut him off and was already standing, "You don't know but I do. I'm fine. I want to have dinner with my family. I've slept like most of this week away. I am not going to kill myself to eat a table."
"Ok then." Alan relented.
Charlie walked behind Don ready to help him to the table if necessary.
All three men sat while Alan handed around the plates. Don took the opportunity to stare at each family member and grin without them knowing. He was going to be OK. Things certainly weren't fine and he was still hiding a lot from his family but things were going to be just fine. The important stuff was sorted. The conversation had turned cosmic as Charlie and Alan were discussing whether or not time would seem to move slower for Larry in space where the usual markers didn't apply.
"I don't know, I think it would drag. Not knowing when to get up and do stuff. People need routine Charlie." Alan stated.
"I don't."
"Yes, well, it is widely accepted you are not people Charlie. You're a genius, you're supposed to be slightly skewed."
"Hey. If you prick me...All I'm saying is I think Larry would not be noticing time moving at all because he's free of those routines."
"There's never enough." Charlie and Alan stared at Don. This comment seemed to have come out of nowhere.
"And yet here you are with all of it in the world." Alan replied softly.
"It's all I do have left in the world." Don's eyes seemed sad and Alan and Charlie both felt that a meal at the table had been too much for him. "Time I mean. It's all we do have. So I guess Larry would still be thinking about it Charlie. It's the only thing we have that we can never escape. Larry may get lost in his work like you do, but both of you still have to accept that time IS still moving without you. It doesn't stop for us just because we want it to or because we aren't paying attention to it. Before you know it you're all grown up and no longer a child prodigy. Or no longer into playing baseball. Or." Don looked at his dad. "Or no longer married."
Alan and Charlie were dumbfounded. Truly Don had been hanging around the geeks too long, he was starting to sound like them. Alan was a little worried he was too serious and his joviality had been a mask like always. Then Don spoke. "Just saying is all. I mean if we're talking about it from a philosophical point of view. No matter what you geeks do Charlie you still can't make time move backwards so the point is moot. It's always going forward." He looked up at his family with their serious faces and smiled. "Just my 2 cents of course. Hey Chuck, the mustard."
Charlie handed Don the mustard for his steak. Don unscrewed the top and then went to scrape some out of the jar. It was empty. "What the?"
Alan looked at Charlie with a frown. "Where'd you put the mustard I bought the other day?"
Charlie gulped. "I didn't touch it."
"Yeah sure." Don smirked.
"I did not touch the mustard. I think you didn't buy any."
Alan looked at Charlie and pointed with his fork, "$1.28, Dijon. Bought on Wednesday. I have the receipt. I am not senile."
"Well now I am thinking maybe that's an option because I haven't touched any mustard."
"It's not like you pay much attention to domestic stuff Charlie. Can't you just go look for the mustard. Your poor sick brother can't eat this without it." Don added.
"Well if you're so sick bro maybe you shouldn't be eating anything as rich as mustard huh."
"Charlie just go look." Alan said as he placed his cutlery next to his plate.
"No, I know I didn't touch it because you didn't buy any. I thought that was the new mustard. You must be getting confused."
Don started to get up from his chair. "Fine. I'll go check."
"Great Charlie, see what you've done."
"Oh for…Fine." Charlie threw his hands up at his father's comment. "I'll check for mustard, but I'm telling you you didn't buy any."
Charlie got up from the table in a huff and went into the kitchen. Alan and Don smirked at each other.
"You didn't buy any mustard did you?" Don said.
"Nope."
They both laughed.
"Charlie's right. I don't feel well enough to have anything as rich as mustard tonight. I'll be lucky to get through this steak. But I'm not telling Chuck that."
Don grinned. Everything was going to be OK. Except maybe Charlie, he was going to be pretty pissed once he worked out everyone knew there was no mustard and he was right….