He walked down the jet way from the plane, pulling out his cell as he went. He flipped it open and dialed a familiar number. "Yeah, I just landed." He paused, listening. "No. I don't have anything to pick up. I'll be right out." He closed the phone and moved quickly through the crowds of people lining the concourse. A few minutes later, he arrived at the drop off/pick up area. He scanned the arriving and departing cars, looking for the familiar sedan. A moment later, the car pulled up to the curb. He opened the back door, tossed his bag on to the back seat and slammed the door. He then opened the front door and slid into the front passenger seat.

"It's amazing, you know. They don't want you parking by the curb to pick someone up, but they don't mind you driving around in circles. The logic escapes me," his father said as he pulled back out into traffic.

He tilted his head back against the headrest and shut his eyes. "They don't want someone parking in front of the terminal with a bomb."

"I know. But they think that would actually stop someone from exploding a bomb. It wouldn't take any more time than it would to pick someone up. I mean…"

He opened his eyes and looked over. "Really, Dad? Do you really want to be telling me this? About how you've thought about airport bombings?"

"I'm just saying, the logic." He glanced over at his son, who had already shut his eyes again. "Thanks for coming, Donnie," he said softly.

"It's okay, Dad."

He sighed. "You know your mother and I…"

"I know," he interrupted. "It's okay."

He drove on in silence. He'd heard the tension and fatigue in his son's voice and decided to just let him be. There were times when it just wasn't worth it to push him.

Traffic wasn't as bad as it usually was and they arrived at the house in relatively good time. He opened his eyes as they pulled in to the driveway. The house, his childhood home, hadn't changed a bit. The classic craftsman lines, warm and familiar still seemed inviting, welcoming him back. As the car stopped, he popped open his door and then moved to grab his bag from the back seat. As he did, his father noticed the sidearm.

"They actually let you get on a plane with that?" he asked, nodding his head at the weapon.

"Yes, they do." He picked up the bag. "Some pilots even appreciate it."

"You brought it here? You're taking it in to the house? You know…"

He interrupted his father. "Dad, it's part of my job. Would you feel better if I left it sitting on the front seat of the car? You think that would be a better idea?"

"Well, no. But a gun? In the house?"

He took a deep breath. Was this always going to be a discussion between them? "It's fine, Dad. It'll be kept safe." He shut both car doors and headed towards the house. How long had it been since he'd been home? He couldn't quite remember. Thanksgiving, maybe? No, not this past one, he'd been in the middle of a case. Maybe the year before. He shook his head. It didn't matter right now.

He reached the front door and opened it, stepping in to the foyer. He looked around. Nothing had changed. The furniture, the pictures, the stuff. It was all just as he remembered it. He took another deep breath, shut his eyes and let it all just wash over him. He was home.

He heard two voices and then the door creak. He opened his eyes, turned, and smiled. "Hi, Baby Girl," he said.

"Donnie!" she said, dropping her things on the floor with a thud, rushing to him.

He dropped his own bag and opened his arms to her, knowing instinctively to catch her just before she plowed in to him. He hugged her, then kissed the top of her head. "Look at you," he said, holding her away from him, while he looked her up and down. He frowned at the short, short skirt and sleeveless polo shirt that she was wearing.. "They let you go to school dressed that way?"

She rolled her eyes. "I had tennis practice." She put her hands on her hips. "Plus, I don't think you get to tell me what to wear, big brother."

"Maybe not, but still…"

"Let her be, Don," a voice said from the stairs.

He turned. "Mom. I hope we didn't wake you. I thought you…"

"It's okay," she said. "You didn't wake me up. I know when your sister's due home." She looked over at her daughter and smiled. "You should go change, Sweetheart, so we can go out to eat. Oh, and please choose something appropriate for a nice meal. It's not often that you're brother's here."

She wrinkled her nose at her mother. "A party dress, maybe? With a little tiara?" she said as she headed to the stairs.

"Ohh, what sass," she said, giving her daughter a little smack on the behind as she went by.

"I can't imagine where she gets it from," their father said, smiling up at his wife.

The teenager giggled as she bounded up the steps towards her room.

"That sound can only come from an adolescent girl," he thought, as he watched her disappear at the top of the steps. He remembered why he missed her.

His mother reached the bottom of the stairs and came over to him. She wrapped her arms around him in an embrace, holding him close. "Don."

He could smell her perfume, the scent that she'd worn for as long as he remembered. He closed his eyes and inhaled. The gentle floral always reminded him of her and of times both near and far. He took another breath. "I'll come home, Mom," he whispered.

She pulled away slightly, cupping his cheek in her hand. "Don, you don't…"

"It's okay. I'm coming home," he said quietly.

"But your job."

"Don't worry. I'll make it work. It might take a little time, but when I get back on Monday, I'll start… I'll make it work." He saw the weariness in her face, the lines deeper around her eyes than he remembered. "It'll be alright, Mom."

She smiled weakly at him. "Oh, Donnie."

He kissed her and gave her a hug. "It'll be okay. Don't worry."

She looked into his eyes, the mixture of strength and sadness and determination that they held. Her brave boy. Her strong, brave boy. She'd missed him so.

He looked away. "I'm going to go clean up for dinner." He reached over and picked up his bag, throwing it over his shoulder.

"Your room's ready. I put some extra towels on your dresser, and there are fresh sheets on the bed." She shut her eyes for a moment and looked back at him. "And Don, be careful with that, please," she said, making a small gesture towards his gun.

He sighed, running his fingers through his short hair. "Yeah. I know." He headed up the stairs, towards his old room. At the top of the steps, he heard the faint sound of music, the kind of sugary pop tunes that only teenage girls (and the boys trying to date them) ever could listen to. He shook his head, the faintest of smiles crossing his face. He couldn't believe that his little sister was old enough to be listening to that kind of stuff, that she wasn't a little girl anymore.

He took the last couple of steps to his room. He stopped in the doorway and looked around. Very little had changed in the room since his childhood and even less since he'd gone off to college years before. The posters were gone, but he'd done most of that himself before he'd left. The thumbtack holes had been filled and the room repainted, but in almost the exact same shade of cool, pale green that it had been before. The furniture sat in the same places where he'd left it, with some of the old books still on the shelves alongside the trophies and memorabilia that he hadn't taken with him when he'd moved out. He went over to the shelf closest to his old desk and ran his fingers over the spines of the books, his eyes roaming over the titles. The desk still had paper and pens on it, along with some old notes that he'd left the last time he'd been there. Criminal law. He shook his head. He'd wondered where he'd left those. He took his phone off his belt, put it on the desk, along with his watch and then put his gun next to it. The same desk where he'd practiced his handwriting as a little kid.

He put his bag on the bed, opened it, pulled out his things and laid them on the bed. He looked over to his old dresser, then back to his things then back to the dresser again. He reached over, opened one of the drawers, and, finding it empty, decided to put his clothes inside. What harm would it do, besides, it was his dresser. He took his shaving kit and put it on top of the dresser. He opened it, took out a few things and grabbed one of the clean towels that his mother had left for him. He took the items and headed towards the bathroom, hoping not to find that his sister had taken it over. She hadn't. He dropped his stuff on the shelf near the sink and turned on the faucet to let the water warm up. He rested his hands on the edge of the sink and looked into the mirror that hung over it. What he saw was the results of both not enough and too much. Not enough sleep, not enough downtime, too much stress, too many memories, too many emotions. He shook his head and looked away. He reached for his soap, washed his face and then ran his wet hands through his hair. He dried his face with the towel and then looked back in the mirror. He sighed. At least he looked a little more refreshed than he had.

He left the bathroom, leaving his things on the shelf, but taking the towel with him and headed back to his room. As he entered, he pulled his t-shirt over his head and then pushed the door behind him with his foot, the same way he used to. He used the slightly damp towel on his torso then looked in the dresser drawer he'd just put his clothes in. He grabbed a clean t-shirt and a button-down and proceeded to put them on. He ran his brush through his dampened hair then grabbed his watch off the desk and put it back on. He glanced at the phone. He should call Kim, if nothing else to let her know that he'd arrived in LA. He picked up the phone, flipped it open, then paused before he dialed. He decided to leave her a message on their home phone instead of trying her cell. He didn't want to take the chance of actually reaching her. He knew that there was going to be a long discussion that they were going to need to have and he really didn't want to have them over the phone.

He dialed the familiar number, listened while the answering machine played through its greeting, then took a deep breath before he started to speak.

"Hey, hon. I made it to LA. I'm at the house." He paused. "There's some stuff we're going to need to talk about, you know about the family, my family. I don't want to do it over the phone. So, umm. I'll be back on Sunday. Sunday night. We'll talk then, okay? So, umm, Sunday then. Love you. Bye." He hung up. He was not looking forward to the conversation that he was going to have to have with her. He'd made a pretty important decision that was going to affect both of their lives and he'd done it without discussing it with her or even mentioning that there was any discussion to be had. Honestly, he hadn't even thought before he made the decision to come back home. He shook his head. There wasn't really all that much that he could do now.

He flipped his phone closed and clipped it back to his belt. He looked towards his gun, still sitting on the desk. Normally, he'd put it back on before leaving, but this time, he wondered if he should. It bothered both of his parents, neither of whom really liked the fact that this was a part of his chosen career. And they were going out to a family dinner in a city where he didn't work. He went back to his bag and pulled out the one thing that he'd left in it. His gun case. He took it to the desk, picked up his gun, checked the chamber, put it in the case and then locked it. He took it over to the dresser, opened the bottom drawer and put the case in, then shut the drawer. He turned, then headed out of his room, towards the stairs, before he could reconsider.

He headed down the steps, hearing his mother on the phone as he got to the bottom.

"Hello, Charles Eppes, this is your mother, Margaret Eppes. Your brother has arrived and we're just about ready to head out to dinner. Are you coming? Do you need us to pick you up?"

He couldn't hear the other end of the conversation, but he could imagine his brother, likely surrounded by chalk dust, considering her questions.

"Okay," he heard her answer. "We'll be there 15, 20 minutes. Can you please be ready and waiting for us so we don't have to come looking for you?" He saw her smile. "We'll see you soon, Sweetheart." She hung up and turned towards her husband. "He says he'll be ready."

"Yeah, good luck on that," he said to his mother.

She turned back to him. "We're going to Portofino's, is that alright?"

He smiled back at her. "Great. They have some of the best steak pizziola around."

"Red meat, let's eat," he heard his sister say from behind him as she came down the steps.

"Ah, at least my children got that from me," his father said.

His mother looked at his sister as she came down. She noticed something. "Julie, can you please put on some real shoes? Flip flops are not appropriate for the restaurant."

She rolled her eyes. "But, Mom…"

"Julia, change them. Now." She pointed up the steps.

"Fine," she huffed, heading back up the stairs.

He smirked. "You were the ones who always said you wanted a girl."

"Don, this is not about her being a girl. This is about her being a teenager. And I remember someone I used to know who was very particular about his hair, when he was that age…"

He blushed. Was there anything embarrassing that mothers didn't remember?

He was saved from any further sharing by his sister coming back down the stairs.

"Is this better?" she asked, with the petulant tone that can only be from a teenager to her mother.

"Much. Thank you."

He watched as his sister came down the rest of the steps and he wondered for a brief moment why her shoes had been the issue. It wasn't as though she was inappropriately dressed, it was more like she was riding the fine line between parentally acceptable and going out with her friends. Or on a date. Her jeans hugged her slender figure without being quite tight enough, or low enough, he supposed, to earn the wrath of her father. Her pale pink babydoll top, with its little cap sleeves, hit just below the waist of her jeans. The shoes that she put on were also pink, her favorite color since she'd been very young. Her shoulder-length dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, showing off the little charms she wore dangling from her ears. She carried a darker pink hoodie over her arm, in deference to their mother's usual insistence that they have a sweater or jacket, just in case.

All of a sudden, he realized he was staring. His little sister, his baby sister, was dressed to be noticed. Guys would notice her. He frowned slightly, shaking his head. He wasn't sure that he wanted to let her leave the house dressed like that. He felt a hand touch his shoulder.

"Don, she's fine. Don't worry about it," he heard his mother whisper from behind him. She'd seen his expression and thought that she'd say something before he opened his mouth and became an overprotective, very overprotective big brother.

"Can we leave already?" Alan asked from the doorway. "Or are we trying to make this the first time that Charlie has to wait for us?"

"That'd be rich," she said. "Charlie actually waiting for someone." She looked around, puzzled. "Where's my purse? It was with my stuff by the door."

"You mean the bags that you left sitting in the middle of the foyer?" her father asked. "I put them in the family room, where everyone wouldn't trip over them."

She rolled her eyes while she headed to the family room, where she grabbed her purse. "I'm readddy."

He looked at her. "What could you possibly be carrying in that little thing?"

She opened her purse. "My cell phone." She pulled it out and showed it to him. "My permit." She looked hopefully at her parents.

"No." They both answered in unison.

"Huhh." She responded. She reached in to the bag again. "My keys. And…"

He smiled. "A lipstick." He shook his head. "Always a lipstick." Ever since she'd been a little girl carrying her first purse, she'd carried a lipstick, whether a pretend, candy lipstick or as she got older, lip gloss then actual lipstick. She was always such a girly girl.

"Okay, enough chit chat. Let's go. Dinner." He tried to shoo them all towards the door. "Let's go."

She put her phone and keys back in to her purse and headed out, pausing as she passed her father to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Love you, Daddy."

He smiled then turned to his wife and elder son. "Don, Margaret, you coming?"

"We're right behind you," she said. As his father walked out the door, the foyer became silent, and in the silence, the reason why he'd come back this weekend seemed to press in on him. They needed to talk about what was happening, what was going to happen, but instead, they were acting like nothing was going on. He shut his eyes and as he did, he felt his mother's hand on his arm. "Don, it's time to go," she said.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Mom, we need…"

She pressed a finger to his lips. "Shh."

He tried to take a deep breath. "Mom…"

"No, Don. Not tonight. Please. There will be enough time. Just for tonight…"

He nodded. They would be a family tonight, just like any other, their past issues irrelevant, their future… Well…

She slipped her arm in to his. "Let's go. Your father and sister are waiting and I can only wonder where Charlie might wander off to if we leave him waiting for too long." She smiled up at him.

He nodded again, forcing a small smile. "Let's go."