Title: Paper Planes
Series: Ulysses *Prologue*
Author: loozy
Characters: Don, Billy Cooper, Robin; Don/Robin
Rating: PG- 13/ K
Summary: It was something that kept them sane, the methodical folding, the precision, something that soothed their tense minds. It was a distraction, to find the perfect fold, and a welcome one at that.
Word Count: 1527
Spoilers: after 5x23, Angels & Devils
Notes: Inspired by my drabble in the Silence & Safety- series, Telephone... Beta'ed by the awesome vaeriev84 who also inspired a lot of what is to come in this fic...
Prompt: # 23 Connection
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.
Feedback: Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

Prologue – Paper Planes

Despite what Don might have told Charlie, he did not know how to do the perfect paper plane until he met Coop and was introduced to boring stakeouts and a gazillion methods of distraction.

Folding paper planes is one of them.

Coop has that down to an art and he showed Don how to improve his already good skills to perfection. Also, he showed him how to fold planes with a variety of materials, and still make them fly.

Napkins. Tissues. Cardboard. Wrapping paper.

You name it, Coop knows how to fold it.

As far as Don knows, he was the only partner that Coop ever showed his skills, which, in Don's eyes, mirrors the friendship and true partnership that they have shared. The friendship is still there, even if Coop is literally all over the place. They talk, they chat and email. They try to not lose contact like before the last time, though Coop understood completely. A parent's death is never something to be taken lightly, and even a year later, Don was still reeling from it.

After his brief stint in LA, they have both made an effort, and as a result, their friendship has strengthened. Coop knows all about Don's woman- troubles, he knows about Robin Brooks, about Liz Warner and then about Brooks again. He even met the headstrong prosecutor in Miami, when she was working on a case that he had handled. They had talked after the initial meeting, but when he had asked her out for a drink, she had declined, saying that she just broke up with a guy back in LA.

He had not thought much of it, had texted Don, asking him if he knew a prosecutor named Robin Brooks, to which his friend only replied, She broke up with me last week.

Coop had never mentioned it to Don that he had hit on his ex- girlfriend, not even when they were back together again, but when he called Don after his injury *unknowingly so*, his former partner had called him on it, in a teasing manner, though, that showed Coop that Don held no grudge against him. It was more like the other man was even gloating a bit. Back in the day, it had been Coop who had gotten more women than Don when they had been on a prowl after a rough case, and the fact that Don had gotten the woman had left him back, and that she had given Billy the boot had amused the laid- down man quite a bit.

Of course Robin had told him after she had seen photos of Don during his Fugitive Recovery- time.

Don had then proceeded to show her the perfect paper plane, something that Billy had folded for him when Don had been in hospital with a broken leg, courtesy of Manning Fields, a lovely fellow who had raped, strangled and quartered about a dozen women before being caught by agents in Las Vegas, only to escape on the prison transport.

Subsequently, Don and Billy, the more- or- less legendary FR- team, had been pitched on him, and their reputation had held. Fields had been back to prison within ten days. It had been a time of long treks on empty roads, and they must have folded about a hundred planes during that time. Whenever they had a rest, which was as good as never, they let the planes fly, trying to figure out which ones to chuck away into the nearest trash cans and which one to keep.

It was something that kept them sane, the methodical folding, the precision, something that soothed their tense minds. It was a distraction, to find the perfect fold, and a welcome one at that.

No- one can fold paper planes quite like Coop, not even Charlie, who thinks that for this you need an equation. Don had proven him quite wrong the evening after the chat in his brother's office. Sometimes you just needed a steady hand and experience.

Anyways, he now has a box full of planes, all of them mean something to him. He knows that Coop has a box of them in his place, too. They might be men, but they are also sentimental, and they knew that a partnership quite like theirs was one in a lifetime.

Some things just happen once, and this had been one of them.

Coop was, is, like the older brother that he never had. To him he could be a bit of a brat, he could whinge and moan and play the younger- brother, or junior agent card, even if Coop told him to stop the bullshit. Coop was vital in shaping him into the agent he is now. And he loved Fugitive Recovery, because he could be his own man. He was not a son or a brother. He was not 'the other Eppes- kid', he was Don Eppes, one part of a duo of agents who had tracked down more fugitives in their time than any other pair before and after them. They received recommendations from their superiors, even if their methods were a bit unorthodox at times, they even got recognition from the Director of the FBI and the President.

And now?

Now Coop is doing his thing with a steadily- changing flow of agents, who either move on after a while or regard FR as such a punishment that they go back to their desk job as soon as possible. FR- agents need to be of a certain calibre, otherwise you will not make the cut.

A good FR- agent needs to be in possession of a unique combination of patience and impatience, tenacity and relaxation. They need to have a good eye, an even better shooting ability and a most excellent mind. They have to have aced their profiling- classes in Quantico, and they need to have an insight into people that has to be part of their make- up, that cannot be trained.

Coop and Don had all of these traits and combined, they had proven deadly.

Well, not quite deadly. More like deadly successful. A ninety per cent closure rated showed off their success.

Now, years later, Don still likes to reminisce about the good old time, when his mother was still alive and berating him, or rather his mailbox, on a regular basis about not calling. When his father had gotten over the anger he had held when Don had joined the FBI, and was instead now proud of his son. When Charlie and him had barely been speaking.

No, actually, that last part just feels wrong. Don knows why they did not talk, why they did not keep in touch, and why he distanced himself from his family.

That all has changed.

His mother is dead, and he still cannot think about this without feeling a painful tug at his heart, a twinge.

His father and him are as close as they have ever been, since Don started kindergarten and became his own little person and the focus shifted from him to Charlie.

Charlie and he are the closest they have ever been. They even got through the hard times, they were still talking when Charlie did not have his clearance, and they are friends now.

Billy and him are in contact again, too. An injury will do that to you, help you get your priorities in order, and he had not known how much he missed Coop until he heard his voice on the phone. Before that, they managed to exchange emails and the occasional texts. Nothing big. Phone calls were sparse. He could tease his friend, laugh with him, discuss cases, just talk to him about nothing and everything.

It was like back in the day.

He misses that. As good friends as he is now with David and Colby, there was just something about his partnership with Coop... It was like what he had with Megan.

He digs through the box and finds another paper plane, the first one that Billy ever folded for him during a stakeout and lets it fly.

It lands at the feet of Robin who has just come into the room from the kitchen, holding two cups of tea in her hands. She just raises her eyebrows at him and grins. When she comes to him with a slightly sultry walk, he forgets all about the paper planes.

And the tea.

--

Robin, however, does not forget. Well, she does, until she wakes up before Don from the nap they both took after rolling around in bed for the better part of an hour. She sips her cold tea and contemplates the shoebox of paper planes lying on the box at the end of the bed, and the lone plane in the doorway.

She makes out the soft lines around Don's eyes, the slight tension in his shoulders that has not abated even in sleep and reaches a decision.

She carefully reaches over Don's prone body, grabs his phone and copies a number from it to her Blackberry.

Then she steps into the bathroom to make a call.