Disclaimer:Numb3rs isn't mine, and the episode I've distorted was written by the brilliant Ken Sanzel.

Author's Note:My holiday present for the Official Don Whumper Club (you know who you are). Oh, and wouldn't you know it, Liz somehow disappears from my stories. It's magic, I tell you!

"Hey, Colby," called out Don. "The SAC kicked this back," he said, waving the folder he held in his hands.

"Again?" replied Colby with a touch of disbelief as he accepted the folder from his boss and flipped it open to see what was wrong, similar to an ambitious high school student wondering why they'd gotten an F when they should have gotten an A.

"Yeah, they wanna know where we're out on the title 3's," Don answered, going over to his chair and grabbing his jacket before shrugging into it.

"We heading out?" asked Megan as she approached.

"You guys going to the stash house?" asked David as he sauntered in behind Megan.

"Yeah, but we're going to pick up breakfast first," replied Don.

"Lumberjack special, double the pancakes, please," piped up Colby.

"David?" Megan asked.

"California scramble for me, thanks," said the bald-headed man.

"You got it," replied Megan as she and Don made their way towards the row of elevators.

Downstairs, Alan and Charlie had just made it past security and were somewhat patiently waiting for an elevator car headed up. Charlie, in the meanwhile, entertained his father with a short lecture on the Elevator Paradox:

"…. so, if we were standing here for several hours, we would b-," Charlie elucidated but was interrupted by his father:

"Saved by the bell," butted in Alan thankfully, as said sound resounded in their ears.

The elevator doors dinged open to reveal Megan and Don standing in the car. The two agents smiled as they recognized who were standing in front of them, waiting for them to get out:

"Hey guys," greeted Megan with a wide smile.

"Hey, didn't know you two were coming down. What's the special occasion?" asked Don as he and Megan stepped out of the elevator car.

"My publisher wants a few photos of me in the FBI bull-pen," explained Charlie with a shy, embarrassed smile. "Sounds tacky, I know, but my publisher is more ruthless than Dad here."

"Hey!" protested Alan as his sons and Megan grinned. "I'm a very easy-going person. What do you mean, ruthless?"

Realizing that other people were trying to meander their way through the group of four to get into the neglected elevator, they moved a few steps away towards the front doors and the security standpoint.

"Ruthless? Never, Dad," answered Don. "Except for, you know… marriage."

"Grandkids," offered Charlie.

"Taking some days off…,"

"Grandkids," supplied Charlie again, helpfully.

Alan rolled his eyes at this bombardment from his sons and looked to Megan for help who jumped in willingly:

"Hey, I'm actually with Alan on the 'taking a few days off' issue. In fact, I'm headed back East in a few weeks," she informed Alan and Charlie.

"Oh really?" queried Alan with a curious tone.

"You know, Larry mentioned something about heading east himself for a bit," said Charlie with a cheeky grin.

"Ah, still going strong, huh? David will be happy to know he's won twenty bucks off Colby," commented Don.

"You guys bet on me?" Megan asked, a tiny threat in her tone. "Whose side did you bet on?"

"Me? My parents taught me never to bet on ladies, thank you very much," replied Don with a grin towards his father, but to Charlie, he said in a stage whisper audible to all: "Granger owes me twenty too."

As Megan playfully punched Don on the arm, the sounds of a man running reached their ears, along with the metal detector's shrill tone and the security guard's "Hey!"

Before their very eyes, the man clad in a beige jacket pulled out a gun and shot an FBI agent standing only a few feet away, once in the chest and once in the stomach. As Don and Megan pulled their weapons and Don reached out with one arm to pull Alan back, he wasn't quick enough to yank Charlie, who was standing closest to the bank of elevators, away.

Charlie, amidst all the chaos, confusion and screams that had been ignited by the first shot and escalated by the second, barely had any advance warning before he felt the gunman's arm loop from behind him to around his neck. Reflexively, his hands came up to grip the forearm which was pressing against his throat and pulling him inside the elevator car. Eyes widened with fear, he could see a swarm of gun-wielding people in front of him; agents with their weapons all pointed in his general direction. Closest to the elevator was Don, with Megan a bit further back and to the left, his father standing, looking horrified, behind her.

"Drop the weapon. Drop the weapon now and let him go," ordered Don as he aimed at the bald man's head, making sure his eyes didn't wander to his brother.

"This is not my fault," shouted the man, close enough to Charlie's ear to make him wince. "I acted in self defence."

"Self defence from whom? Who's trying to hurt y-," asked Megan but she was interrupted:

"From you, from all of you, you won't leave me alone," he yelled, his gun pointed a bit too low to the ground to be very threatening.

Don used the distraction posed by Megan to shift closer to the elevator until he was standing inside with his foot stopping the doors from closing. A quick flick of his eyes had showed his brother was watching him carefully but was quite willing to let the professionals do their job. At the moment, Don didn't really care what the man's reasoning was for coming into a federal building and start shooting; his priority was getting his brother far, far away from this madman.

"Okay, you- just-. Sir, just tell me what you need," asked Megan patiently, her voice trying to calm the man.

"'What I need?'" asked the man, his brow creasing, his tone revealing the fact that he hadn't quite thought about what he wanted.

Don realized with dread that this man had just walked in on impulse, with no consideration for the future or the consequences of his actions. A man without an agenda always posed more of a danger than a man with. At least they had the decency to be somewhat predictable.

"You need a hostage," Don filled in for the man, who took this as an instruction and shifted the gun's aim away from Megan to jab it into Charlie's side, whose eyes, if it was possible, widened further.

"You need a hostage," Don emphasized on the numbers. "Now you have two. It won't be easy, keeping an eye on both of us. Your attention will be divided, which means you'll make more mistakes, that much sooner. Is that what you want?" Behind him, he could hear the uncertainty in Megan's voice as she said his name, protesting his giving himself up as a hostage and questioning his plan of action.

"I'll kill him," threatened the shooter, his matter-of-fact tone in sharp contrast to the hysteria in his voice earlier on.

"You do that, and I'll make your life more of a misery than you ever thought possible," countered Don, the look in his eyes confirming his promise.

The man considered this. "I'll let him go if you let the door go."

"No, we can't do that," jutted in Megan before Don had a chance to reply.

"Yes, we can," said Don, directing it more at Megan. He nodded to the hostage taker. "You've got a deal. Now let him go."

The shooter waited for only a moment before turning the gun on Don and giving Charlie a hard shove in the back, sending him stumbling towards Megan who reached out one arm and pushed him behind her where Alan grabbed Charlie tightly by the arms.

"I'm ready to die. Are you? Are you?" shouted the gunman, his hysteria returning. Don returned his gaze calmly, making good on his word as he stepped further into the elevator.

The last glimpse everyone had as the doors started to close was of two guns pointed straight at each other.

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Inside the elevator car, Don watched as the man in front of him reached to his left towards the elevator buttons and pushed the emergency stop, the brakes bringing the car to a squealing stop.

"Alright. What now?" Don asked, in an almost bored tone of voice.

"I- I- just need a minute to think. Just let me think, alright?"

"Don Eppes," offered Don.

"What?" the gunman said, puzzled.

"Don Eppes. While you're thinking, might as well know my name. I'd hate to be referred to as 'the FBI dude holding the gun' in your head."

"Ben Blakely," reciprocated Ben.

"Alright, Ben, think away, I'll be right here," replied Don, careful to keep all aggression and tension to a minimum. It wouldn't do to be stuck in a box with a twitchy gunman. "Take all the time you need."

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Damn. Damndamndamn, thought Megan as she holstered her weapon. She turned her head to the right to look at Alan and Charlie who, for a moment, had their gazes fixed on the closed elevator doors. Megan's voice jolted them to the present:

"Charlie, are you alright?" she asked. The nod she received as a reply was enough for her to move on to other things. She was surrounded by many agents, but it was her boss who was being held hostage, albeit very willingly, and so, it was her command. She quickly walked towards the downed agent, kneeling on the floor next to him:

"Hey, hanging in there?" she asked the bald-headed man. She had seen him once or twice around the office, but working in different departments, she had not really gotten to know him well. She didn't even know his name.

The downed agent nodded, even as sweat covered his brow.

"I've already called the paramedics, and SWAT has been mobilized," said the agent who was keeping pressure on the man's wounds. Megan nodded her thanks and got up, reaching for the cell-phone on her belt.

"Colby, we have a problem. Get David and meet me on the ground floor." Hanging up before Colby had an opportunity to get a word in, she was faced by the double threat of the Eppes family members still on this floor:

"What can I do?" Charlie asked, a look in his eyes reminiscent of the case two years ago where a hunt for a crystal meth ring had turned into a search for a sexually abused child. During that time, Megan had had to deal with the guilt of losing an agent under her command while Charlie was confronted with the knowledge that when he was a child, he had an opportunity to help someone in a similar position as the little girl, but didn't. It was determination that Megan saw, touched with anger and self-hate.

"Charlie, Alan, right now I need you two to go upstairs and stay there. When we have something for you, I promise, I will come to you. But until then, you need to stay out of the way, okay?" Megan motioned to an agent who came over, and told him: "Take them to the war room and make sure the SAC is informed of the situation."

Relieved that Charlie and Alan didn't put up a protest at being herded away, Megan was able to put to rest her responsibility towards Don of their safe-keeping for the moment to focus on other things. An elevator bell chimed and preceded the arrival of David and Colby who got off the elevator with identical looks on confusion at the scene in front of them.

"Megan?" queried David's deep, rich voice.

"We've got a hostage situation. A man barged in, shot an agent," she pointed towards the wounded man now being cared for by the paramedics, "took Charlie hostage and got into an elevator. Short version is, Don exchanged himself, and now he and the shooter are in that elevator. " She pointed to the appropriate one.

It took a moment for the two men to digest so much information, but it was David who spoke first: "Don let himself be taken hostage? What was he thinking?"

"Yeah, if any one of us had done that, we'd be looking at desk work for a year," commented Colby as he looked around.

"I know but… it was Charlie. The rules don't apply."

"Charlie okay?" asked Colby.

"Physically, yeah. Mentally… he's with Alan in the war room. Hopefully, he'll be able to pull a rabbit out of his hat this time too," replied Megan.

"What do you need us to do?" asked David, speaking for both himself and his partner.

"SWAT's on its way here. Colby – you co-ordinate with them. David, I need you to interview the agent who was shot. The gunman said something weird, that he did this out of self-defence; that the FBI was after him. Look into that angle, yeah?"

"You got it," said David and began walking towards the agent who had, by now, been loaded onto a stretcher, pulling out his notebook as he did so.

Taking a deep breath, Megan ran a hand through her hair before turning on her heels and walking towards the SWAT leader headed her way.

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Alan hovered at the doorway, neither fully in nor out of the war room where sat his youngest son. Multiple monitors around the bull-pen were broadcasting the feed from the camera inside the elevator. His eldest's dark head was easily recognizable as he stood face to face with an armed man. Nervousness had him shifting his feet back and forth, continually looking from one son to the other.

"So somebody can just walk into the FBI and start shooting people?" asked Alan incredulously as he saw three men clad in SWAT gear troop towards the bank of elevators and pry open the doors of the one to the far left.

"Yeah, it seems to happen every year or so around here. Not surprising, considering the number of people who carry weapons here and the amount of criminals associated with this building…," muttered Charlie as he rummaged through his bag, hoping that his father wouldn't note that his hands were shaking. Whether it was a residual effect of the adrenal response when he was being held hostage, or out of fear and concern for his brother, Charlie wasn't sure.

"Don's going to be ok?"

To his credit, Charlie paused only for a second in his writing before answering:

"Probabilistically."

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"So what do you think is going on outside, Ben?" Don asked when the silence had stretched too long.

"Your people are getting ready to kill me, that is what's going on," replied Ben, in a rebellious tone.

"Yeah, well what did you expect, walking into a federal building, guns blazing, taking hostages?" Don shot back.

"I didn't think," said the man, stating the obvious. "I just wanted it to stop."

"Wanted what to stop, Ben?" asked Don. If he was going to be stuck here, he might as well get some answers.

"The spying, the following, the complete and total lack of privacy," listed Blakely. "I told Devane over and over-."

"Devane? He the agent you shot?"

"Yes. I told him to stop, but he wouldn't listen." Blakely paused for a second. "What do you think they'll do now?"

"They, as in, my people?" Don clarified.

"Yes."

"Well, to be honest, Ben, I kinda hope they get something to eat first. My partner and I were on our way to get breakfast before you came barging in. One thing you should probably know: hungry FBI agents? They can get quite testy. I'd tread carefully if I were you."

As if on cue, a bell chimed inside the elevator and a voice came over the intercom:

"Mr. Blakely, this is Agent Megan Reeves."

TBC

I thought it would be a good idea to stop here because a) it was getting too long, and b) I felt I was transcipting the episode.

Constructive criticism would really be great on this one, any advice or thoughts on where I'm going wrong. Neverthessless, I will finish this, it should be done in two more chapters, max, and before next year :-)