A/N This is a crossover with SG-1, Numb3rs and and just a little for Eureka. It's set after Arc of Truth for SG-1, between 4 and 5 of Numb3rs and between 1 and 2 of Eureka.

Assets

"Would you come with me, please sir?"

Charlie looked up squinting at the man who stood silhouetted against the afternoon sun. The park he was sitting in was public, so he wasn't overly concerned by the man in the dark suit bearing over him.

"You must have me confused with someone else," he said.

"Dr Charles Epps?"

"That's me, but you can't be here for me."

"My name is Agent Bryant, and I have orders to collect you for an appointment."

"I don't have any appointments," said Charlie, laying the book he was reading next to him on the bench. "I'm on sabbatical."

"My orders were very specific sir, and I was told you understood the procedure."

"I do understand," Charlie sighed, "but do you understand that I was charged with a felony, and no longer have security clearance to do anything that requires that procedure."

"Your clearance is not in question here, sir. Please come with me, and I'm sure everything will be explained."

Charlie scowled at Bryant, he'd been enjoying his afternoon in the park, and now it was ruined. He stood up grabbed his satchel and looked expectantly at Bryant.

"This way, sir," said Bryant.

"Don't think I didn't notice that you haven't told me what agency you work for," Charlie scowled again as Bryant crowded in next to him, nearly shoving him back down the path to a waiting black sedan.

***

Larry sat by the fountain on campus at Calsci, contemplating the mathematical equations that governed the ripples of the pennies he was tossing in at intervals.

"I knew Professor Epps wasn't going to let them take his work away from him," said a student walking by Larry recognized him as James from a class he'd had last semester.

"Why?" asked his friend, a serious looking brunette.

"He's too smart, and he was innocent of what they accused him of, that's why they let him go."

"Why are you so sure he's gone back to working with the government?"

"I just saw him sucked up by the men in black a few minutes ago," said James sounding smug.

"No kidding where?"

"At Jessop Park, I saw a big creepy man in a black suit and Professor Epps was just sat there reading and this guy walked up to him, they said a few words and Dr Epps just got up and walked with him to this long black car."

"I'm sorry," said Larry getting up suddenly, "Did you say you saw a man take Dr Epps?"

"Dr Fleinhardt," said James, "Yeah, they both just got up and left."

"That can't be right," Larry said to himself more than the students, "When was this?" he asked.

"About an hour ago, is everything alright Professor?"

"Yes, yes I'm sure it's nothing," he looked up at the boy, "James? Isn't it?"

"That's right, James Breton."

"Sorry to interrupt James," said Larry, "I've got to go."

"That's okay, Professor," said James, but Larry was already gone.

***

Don looked across the bullpen and saw something that he hadn't seen since Charlie had lost his security clearance two months earlier. Larry Fleinhardt was making his way from the Bullpen to the area of cubicles occupied by Don's team.

"Larry!" called Don smiling.

"Don," Larry sighed, "I hate to intrude, but have you heard from Charles recently?"

"I haven't really seen much of Charlie lately," said Don, "I had dinner at the house last night, but he's been camped out in the garage for the last few weeks."

"You haven't seen him today?" asked Larry hopefully.

"No, he's been spending a lot of time on his cognitive emergence stuff like I said, what's wrong?"

"It's probably nothing," said Larry deflecting, "I should try his cell-phone again."

"No Larry, if it was nothing you wouldn't be here."

"Yes, well you know that until recently Charles had one of the highest clearances in the government."

"That was Charlie's choice Larry," said Don stiffly, Charlie's loss of his clearance was still a sore subject between the two brothers.

"I understand, I do but I don't think Charles really considered the ramifications of losing that clearance. You don't know this, but Charles has disappeared on a handful of occasions."

"What do you mean disappeared?" asked Don.

"I mean puff gone, off the street, pulled out of class not to be heard from for several days only to return as if nothing had happened."

"And no one ever reported him missing when this happens?"

"No, the chancellor of the university gets a call, 'Dr Epps has been called away on government duty' No questions asked, highly top secret stuff."

"How come I've never heard of this?"

"It's never come up while you've been around," said Larry, "and like I said it's only happened a few times in the last ten years."

"Charlie never tells you where he's gone?"

"He can't, you know he takes his clearance seriously--took, it seriously."

"Why bring this up now?"

"One of my students saw a man in a dark suit talk to Charles in the park, and he saw the man take Charles and get into a large dark colored car."

"But Charlie, doesn't have clearance to the top secret stuff anymore," Don pulled out his cell phone, and speed dialed Charlie.

"Which is why I am concerned, I had hoped it was one of your people," said Larry. Don frowned as he listened to his cell. "What is it?" Don put the phone on speaker.

"Hi you've reached the voice-mail of Charles Epps. If it's important leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks. *beep*"

"That's the message I got an hour ago," said Larry.

"Have you called Amita?" asked Don, "Maybe they went away together?"

"Amita is at a conference all week. I already left her a message to call."

Don dialed again, "Dad, have you seen Charlie?" ..."How long ago?"..."No, it's okay, just have him call me when you see him." Don hung up and sighed, "He went to the park, early this afternoon."

"I'm sure it's the same as it's always been," said Larry, "Just because he lost his clearance doesn't mean they didn't give it back."

"Larry, if you really believed that, you wouldn't be here."

"I know, and despite the lack of rational evidence of foul play, something tells, me it isn't that easy."

"I know me too."

****

Charlie was getting a bad feeling as he slid into the sedan followed snugly by Agent Bryant.

"I'm telling you I don't have security clearance for this stuff anymore."

"Now, now Dr Epps you don't really think we'd let you go just for something little like that now would you?" said a man from the front passenger seat.

A chill ran down Charlie's spine, when he saw who it was.

"Paul," he said, coolly, "I didn't expect to see you."

The man turned in the front seat facing Charlie, "Now, now you know we had an agreement, and it's Agent Grey."

"I lost my security clearance Paul," said Charlie, Grey's left eye twitched infinitesimally whenever Charlie used his given name, it was a small victory of insolence, but Charlie would take every chance he got.

"You're a principled man Dr Epps," Grey continued, "We don't fault you for that, in fact that's why we're so interested in pursuing a relationship with you."

"As usual you aren't listening to the point, Paul. I lost my clearance you can't show anything to me without breaking National Security and committing treason."

"I have special dispensation," said Grey.

"I don't care," said Charlie, "You don't get to do this, that's not how it works. I was stripped of my clearance, because I helped a colleague finish his work that will save millions of lives, neither of us should have ever been arrested, but because I couldn't be seen to get away with pointing out your error, I was label a security risk and you lost the ability to call on me for anything."

"I'm sorry Dr Epps," said Grey, almost smiling, "You seem to be under the impression you have a choice here," Grey's face closed like stone, "You don't."

Bryant reached out and covered Charlie's mouth and nose with a cloth, Charlie struggled briefly, and then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.

***

Don hung up the phone with a sigh as a terrible feeling built up from the pit of his stomach. Charlie was gone, vanished off the face of the earth as far as anyone knew. The university had put Charlie on sabbatical for two months, so they could reorganize the projects that he could no longer work on.

Charlie had been taking it all in stride working more with students one-on-one, updating his cognitive emergence theory work, and basically decompressing from the life he'd been leading since being recognized as a genius. Don knew that Charlie missed working with him, and didn't want to impose on his brother for his choice. He dealt with this mostly by totally ignoring Don's job, he didn't visit the office anymore, he didn't ask about the latest case, but he did invite Don and his team over for meals on a regular basis. It was a difficult transition for them all to make especially, since they'd lost Megan as well. Things were settling in though, getting back into a routine similar to before they had Charlie to turn to but it was slow going.

When it happened, Don was mad, at Charlie, at his own government, at himself for not listening but also part of Don was glad his little brother was out of the picture, he'd been getting too much involved in cases recently, becoming too much FBI and less Teacher/Math Genius. It had been getting dangerous, and Don had been looking for a way to get Charlie away from that for months. Now he was gone, and it had nothing to do with the FBI and everything to do with Charlie, a friend of Don's higher up in the agency had managed to get a look at a few memos circulated recently regarding Charlie's status, a key phrase had popped out at Don when he read them. "Highly desirable asset to be maintained at all cost."

********

Larry was standing alone in the park, when Don walked up to him.

"What's up Larry?" asked Don.

"This is where James said Charles was taken from," he said, clearly becoming more worried as the day wore on. "I found this," he gave Don the book Charlie had been reading.

"What is it?" asked Don.

"It's a book, I loaned to Charles a while back, he and I were discussing using astrological data, as key for a cipher program he was using. There's a note inside."

Don opened the book where it was marked, across the page written in quickly sprawled numbers and equations.

"What does this mean Larry?" Larry took the book back and pointed out the words.

"Bryant, procedure 17, and...." Larry paused looking at the numbers.

"What?" Don asked.

"It says, 'Sorry Don'," said Larry.

"He knew that something was up, but he went anyway."

"It certainly looks that way."

"Why would he do that?"

"Speaking from experience, when you are called to 'duty' as it were, you don't actually have much choice in the matter. The fact that Charles was able to stall long enough to write this and this agent was lax enough not to notice it was left doesn't bode well."

"Why?"

"Government agents chosen for this kind of duty are generally fastidious about the secrecy involved. They would have noticed."

"Charlie was testing him."

"Yes."

"This is bad, isn't it?"

"If you have any friends in highly top secret government positions, I'd call them now."

*********

Charlie was warm, and comfortable and sleeping peacefully, or at least he was until the noise. The noise was a scream, or more precisely a loud piercing furious yell that echoed down the corridor outside the room. Following the noise were footsteps running flat-out slapping on the concrete floor. The footsteps, passed by and then there was a shot, BANG! The footsteps staggered with a cry, continued for a few more steps, before stopping with thud.

"Why you sonofabitch!" someone roared from the direction the footsteps had come.

"Bryant!" the reprimand was sharp to the point and Charlie knew it was Grey. "Damn it! I told you he was not to be harmed."

"He broke my fucking nose!" said Bryant. Both men were stood directly outside Charlie's room and so perfectly audible despite the thick door in the way.

"I told you to be careful," said Grey.

"You told me he was an archaeologist!" Bryant cried, "How was I supposed to know he'd fight the grab."

Grey sighed, clearly running low on patience, "Get some bandages and put him in with the professor, I'm sure they'll appreciate each other's company."

Shortly after that Bryant, sporting a bloody nose, and two rather large men Charlie hadn't seen before came in dragging a tall man with sandy brown hair, his left shoulder was saturated in blood but he was still struggling against being held, he was thrown without ceremony to the floor. A selection of bandages, cotton pads and tape were tossed on the bed where Charlie was now sat.

"Here," said Bryant his voice sounded wet and nasal, "help him."

Charlie scowled at him, but said nothing.

"Suit yourself," said Bryant, "but he's losing a lot of blood and either way you're both staying in here."

Charlie visibly shivered at the thought of having to sit and watch this man die and then be left with his dead body. Bryant smiled, and turned to leave, he gave the man on the floor a vicious kick to the ribs, before finally walking out with his men. Charlie stood up immediately collecting up the medical supplies and knelt next to the man.

"Are you okay?"

The man rolled over on to his back with a groan, "I'm just peachy," he said with a grimace.

"Right," said Charlie, "Stupid question." The man was wearing a loose white shirt that was almost half covered in blood. "This will hurt," said Charlie as he pulled the shirt aside and pressed one of the cotton cloths to the wound. The man groaned and gritted his teeth; his shoulders came up off the floor in reaction. "The bullet went right through, so I'm going to have to bind your whole shoulder to try and stop the bleeding," The man nodded through his grimace. Charlie tended to the man's wound in silence then and when he was done he sat back looking at his fellow prisoner. He was pale, from the blood loss and trying to hide how much pain he was in, but Charlie could see it was a lot.

"This is good," said the man flexing his arm slowly.

"I work with the FBI, I took First Aid," said Charlie.

"FBI?" he asked cocking an eyebrow at Charlie.

"I consult, did consult, I'm a Mathematician."

"A Mathematician that works with the FBI?"

"Yeah."

"No stranger than an Archaeologist that works for the Air Force I guess," he said with shrug. Charlie blinked. "Okay, maybe mine's a bit stranger," He flexed his arm again looking around the room.

"I'm Charlie."

The archaeologist looked back at him his expression blank, "Daniel," he said.

"Why don't you sit up on the bed, it's a lot more comfortable than the cold floor," Daniel looked carefully from the bed to Charlie and back again and then nodded. He managed to get himself to his knees but he had to lean heavily on Charlie to stand up and he was very pale and out of breath when they finally made it to the bed.

"So what are you in for?" asked Daniel, with deep sarcasm.

"I'm a security risk, and an irreplaceable national asset."

"Wow," said Daniel, "I'm just a pain in the ass."

Charlie grinned at him and sat on the other end of the bed. "I think I got that from what you did to Agent Bryant."

Daniel, paused as if trying to figure out what Charlie meant, and then it dawned on him, "Oh, Bryant, was that his name? We never did get to the introductions, but as for the bloody nose, well you jump a guy in the street, especially one who's been doing what I have for the last ten years and you can't expect him to just go down."

Charlie looked down at the covers and tried to pick some imaginary lint off the covers.

"Oh, sorry," said Daniel, "I didn't mean…"

"It's okay, I wasn't attacked, but the protocol was off, there wasn't a lot I could do about it, I hoped it was a mistake that no one had told them. I should have known better."

"Oh, you're one of those 'it's a matter of national security' scientists they pluck off the streets now and then."

"Yeah," said Charlie, "but I lost my clearance, I should have been struck off those lists."

"You lost your clearance?"

"I consult with my brother at the FBI, they had a case involving supposed Terrorism, in the mix of it a colleague of mine got falsely accused of sending dangerous information overseas, they refused to see differently even when I proved that the terrorism link was false, so I finished my friend's work by sending the remaining information to the same places. I was arrested but I proved that the information wasn't dangerous, that it would save lives."

"But even though you were innocent they had to punish you for questioning them, so they took away your clearance," Daniel sighed, "but now they have something for you, and they're realizing that the clearance is a bigger loss for them than it is for you." Daniel smiled, "The US government hell bent on biting the nose off to spite the face."

"I guess so," said Charlie, "Except now I'm here, this isn't like any other time I've been brought in to help."

"I would imagine not," said Daniel, "officially, they can't trust you with the secrets anymore, but they still want your expertise. They can't admit fault, they can't give you back the clearance, and trust you to return to your life."

"So?" asked Charlie.

"So, they won't let you," said Daniel, he looked at Charlie his eyes full of sympathy and understanding.

"They can't do that!" cried Charlie, "I have rights!"

"I have learned in my tenure, that the United States government can and will do whatever it pleases as long as, A) The cost to benefit ratio is heavy on the benefit, B) No one knows about it and/or C) There are big shiny weapons involved," Daniel said pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, you've gotten involved in this Charlie, and I'll do my best to get you out."

Charlie looked at Daniel incredulously, the man was pale, and sweating from his exertions and despite the bandage now staunching the flow of blood, there was a not inconsiderable stain of blood on the floor the cell. "You've lost a lot of blood," said Charlie, "Maybe you should lie down."

"Oh, this?" Daniel snorted, "I've had worse, and in fact I was shot in the same shoulder, two years ago, by my best friend no less," Daniel seemed to find this funny, but Charlie was a little disturbed. "He had a good reason for it," said Daniel, "but I can't tell you, about it, that's classified."

"I'm sure, your friend had a good reason for shooting you," said Charlie, he stood up and seeing Daniel was about to pass out he helped him lie down. Daniel's eyes were drooping, but he was fighting the fatigue.

"If he hadn't I'd be dead," he whispered, "Sometimes I wish he wasn't such a good shot." A final sigh escaped as Daniel lost consciousness. Charlie sat at the end of the bed, by Daniel's feet, and tried to reconcile the man with his words. An archaeologist, working with the Air Force, in secret, where his friend had to shoot him so he wouldn't die and having had worse injuries than being shot. Charlie looked at the unconscious Daniel and only a saw a very tired injured man, about the same age as his brother.

So you guys want some more? Cynic