Authors Notes: Alrighty, for those of you who have kept at me to get another chapter up, thanks for your patience, and enjoy the latest chapter!

Reliving Nightmares Chapter 3

The sun rose up blanketing the sky is colors of pink before rising higher, causing the sky to take on it's normal blue color.

Rising with the sun was Don Eppes, who was used to getting up at the crack of dawn.

Throwing back the covers, Don rubbed his face and yawned before sliding out of bed and plodding downstairs, his hair sticking up in places.

Walking in to the living room, Don stopped and looked at the empty couch.

'Huh, Charlie must'a had a good night, then.' Don thought as he opened the door and grabbed the morning paper off of the porch, before re closing the front door.

Flopping down on the couch, Don unfolded the paper and glanced at the front page, before he put the paper down and looked around. The house was so quiet…to quiet actually.

Normally Charlie would be up by then, munching on breakfast or scribbling equations on his yellow notebook, but not this morning.

Finding this a little on the unusual side, Don rose up, lay the paper down and went plodding back up the stairs.

He passed his old room, then his father's room before arriving at the closed door leading in to Charlie's room.

Raising a hand, Don meant to knock before he lowered his hand and grasped the doorknob. Opening the door Don peeked his head in to see the bed covers thrown back, obvious signs that at one point Charlie had been in bed.

Curious, Don opened the door wider and walked in to the room.

"Charlie?" He asked, looking around his brother's room with a practiced eye.

On the little desk sat Charlie's laptop, the top closed and the power off.

Going over to the computer, Don put a hand on it and discovered that it was cool to the touch, meaning that it hadn't been on since the previous day.

Looking towards Charlie's dresser, Don saw that one of the drawers was slanted and not fully closed. Walking over to it, Don opened it up and looked in. Not really seeing anything amiss, Don closed the drawer and looked down at the floor where Charlie's shoes should have been, but instead all he saw was the wood floor.

The panic alarm not fully going off in his head yet, Don left Charlie's room and went back to his bedroom, down the hall.

Once there, Don went to his chest of drawers and grabbed his cellphone, quickly flipping it open and dialing Charlie's cellphone, which was on speed dial.

Just as Don was putting his cellphone to his ear, he could hear something back in Charlie's room.

Scrunching his eyebrows, Don walked back, listening as the Dukes of Hazzard theme song which Charlie had programmed in to his cellphone got louder as Don got closer to Charlie's room.

Entering the room, Don walked over to the phone just as Waylon Jennings sang the last verse.

Snatching up the phone, Don killed the power, making the song stop.

Sighing Don said, "Charlie…" before he turned and left the room to throw on a pair of shoes and go search for his brother.

NUMB3RSNUMB3RSNUMB3RSNUMB3RSNUMB3RSNUMB3RS

Charlie Eppton threw his hands over his head, protecting himself as the debris from the truck rained down. After several minutes he looked up at the burning truck, knowing that his parents were dead.

"Momma!" Charlie said with a trembling jaw as the tears started pouring down his face.

Sitting up, young Charlie Eppton drew his knees up and lowered his head, before he started crying with a vengeance.

What Charlie didn't notice was that there was no sound at all save for the roaring of the fire. But other than that there was no rain, no wind, no birds in the nearby trees…no nothing. It was as if the whole world was put on mute.

Slowly raindrops came trickling down before it started to rain harder, eventually becoming a steady stream of rain hitting the young boy and the truck.

The fire which had burned so hotly was slowly put out thanks to the on going rain, but once it was out, Charlie didn't rise up and go investigate it, he just stayed where he was, knees drawn up and head down.

Gradually the sound of a car was heard coming towards him, but Charlie paid no mind to it as he focused on the darkness in his mind. Suddenly however a light seemed to appear in that darkness, a light that Charlie couldn't block out no matter how hard the little boy tried.

His mother's voice came to him. Her voice was as sweet as wind rustling through the trees. The words his mother spoke were mathematical terms that she had learned in college, and she had been saying the words to Charlie even before he had been born.

All the time Charlie's mother had spouted off a little mathematical knowledge to her son, even when he had been a baby. As he grew a little older, Charlie stopped paying attention to it, but now with his mother gone, her words came back to him, and Charlie realized that he actually understood the higher up educational mathematical mumbo jumbo that his mother had been saying.

Charlie's mind filled with numbers, numbers that he could understand.

He was so busy concentrating on this new found wonder that he didn't hear the car stop behind him, nor the opening of two doors.

"Oh my gosh, Alan!" A female voice said from behind Charlie.

"Honey, get in out of the rain!" a much younger Alan Eppes said.

"But Alan, we need to help him!" Margaret replied, leaving the safety of holding the car door and walking over to the boy who had his knees drawn up and his head down.

Kneeling down, Margaret Eppes touched the shoulder of the dark haired, four year old, who lifted up his young, tear stained face towards her.

"Oh, honey…" Margaret said, gently pulling the young boy towards her.

Charlie tried to resist this woman's comforting touch, but his need to be comforted overwhelmed him and he stopped resisting and even moved himself closer as Margaret wrapped her arms around him and picked him up off the ground.

Charlie for his part wrapped his arms around Margaret's neck and buried his face on his shoulder and continued to cry over his parents.

"Ssshhh, it's gonna be ok." Margaret whispered in to Charlie's ear as she walked back over to the car and got in, closing the door behind her.

Alan also got back in and closed the driver's side door behind him before he looked at his wife.

"Honey, we can't keep him." Alan said, seeing that his wife already had that motherly gleam in her eyes.

"Honey, he's all alone." Margaret said, looking back at her husband with that knowing look of hers.

"You don't know that. He may have other relatives who will want to take care of him. Besides, we already have one son." Alan replied.

Charlie listened as the nice lady and the man who was obviously her husband, argue about what was to become of him.

After being in the woman's arms, she reminded young Charlie so much of his real mother that Charlie didn't want to be separated from her.

The woman for her part seemed to sense this, for she slightly tightened her grip around the boy in her arms.

"Who knows Alan. Maybe Don and this little boy will get along." Margaret said.

She saw Alan shake his head, but before he could say something Margaret said, "What we will do is place him in a foster home while we file for adoption. But I will not sit by and watch this poor boy be sent to an orphanage!"

"M..my name…Charlie." Charlie whispered in Margaret's arms.

"What is it, sweetie?" Margaret asked, looking at the boy, giving him her attention.

"My name's Charlie." Charlie whispered again, looking at her with his sad, brown eyes.

NUMB3RSNUMB3RSNUMB3RSNUMB3RSNUMB3RSNUMB3RS

"My name's Charlie…My name's Charlie…My name's Charlie."

The young voice faded from his mind as Charlie woke up and sat up on the park bench.

Everything seemed so clear to him now, but Charlie began to wonder if it had all been just a nightmare, because he couldn't even remember first seeing Margaret and Alan.

His first memories were of them and he honestly thought they had been his real parents…until the nightmares had started.

Sighing, Charlie lowered his head and looked at the grass as he tried to come to terms with his newest nightmare.