Sense, a numb3rs fanfic

"…die."

Several weapons discharged creating a cacophony of sound that deafened those caught in the middle of it; particularly Don Eppes.

Don's body slammed into the ground before the chorus of gunshots silenced. The loud crack had emanated from within. And then, there was nothing.

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Earlier…

"Done. Dusted. I'm off."

Don looked up into the weary face of David Sinclair. Thirty-six hours of on-off investigation had finalised the Pernichot case, but there was no happy ending. The last witness had now become the last victim and the team had to watch as their prime suspect disappeared into the anonymity the Canadian border afforded.

Don took the paperwork from David and added it to his own final report pile.

"Unless…You gonna be long? Need a hand?" David said as he tried to straighten himself so he didn't look like he was about to collapse from exhaustion.

A yawn erupted from Don's mouth and then a smile. "Just take that up to the AD and I'll be on my way," Don spoke through another yawn and pointed towards a box in the corner.

David shook his head, "That's more than a hand. Definitely need four hands for that. Remind me again, you get paid the big bucks right? Better leave THAT in your capable hands."

Don's head cocked upwards in a silent laugh and nod, "Yeah yeah, I'm raking it in, I'll only be another twenty. Then I'll be heading home in my Porsche spider."

David chuckled as he headed toward the lift, raising one hand in the air as a goodbye gesture. The other hand was covering his mouth to hide his yawn.

Looking down at the remaining paperwork, Don bit his bottom lip and got stuck into the last few details when his cell suddenly rang. The caller-id revealed it was Charlie. Don blew out a breath of relief that it wasn't some FBI call out that had been fobbed on to him because they knew he was still in the building.

"Chuck."

"Donald. How old are you? Honestly."

"Whaddya want?"

"Actually help."

Don was only half listening as he continued filling out forms and stacking them, creating a crick in his neck as he held the phone between his shoulder and chin. "I guess I owe you. What with?"

"Dad."

"Aw Charlie. Seriously man, I am not going to mediate some quibble you guys may be having over the toilet seat being left up or not."

"Ha ha. I bought that draftsman table for him for his birthday tomorrow but it needs to be assembled. I think I am missing a few pieces. I need help with it. Do ya think you could maybe come round tonight. I want him to come down in the morning and have it all there ready for him."

"Charlie he's an engineer, he'll love constructing it."

"I know but that's not the point."

A pile of manila folders slipped off the table and Don caught them with his free hand, smiling as he figured his baseball skills were always coming in handy at work. "No, the point is his genius son doesn't want to admit that he can't construct something because he's too busy trying to improve the structure rather than just allow it to be built."

"I haven't improved anything, a leg was shaky and so I HAD to fix that but I swear to you I think they've left out a couple of pieces. Not to mention the fact I think I'm missing some of the instructions."

"Seriously bro, can't you get him a bottle of bourbon or something like I do. Can't Amita help?"

"She gave up."

"You mean you had a fight."

"No. But I think she's got the missing instructions."

"Then call her."

"I can't."

"What?"

"We had a fight."

Don wiped a hand over his face and slumped his shoulders. Charlie had won. He could not out-argue Charlie. His mathematical mind was purely logical and there was nothing logical in explaining human relations to Charlie, he just didn't get it. The battle lost, Don sighed, "Fine. I'll swing by on the way home. Doesn't dad know what you're up to in the garage anyway?"

"Thanks. Nup, he's out like a light. He finished off the last of that bourbon you gave him last year. Something about not wanting you to know he hates the stuff by having the bottles rack up."

"Good one Chuck. I got him sake this year. And a golf club. Now let me finish this paperwork and I'll see you in about forty."

A dark shadowy figure slunk around the corner of the garage making Charlie jump out of his skin.

"Geez, I just spoke to you."

Charlie collected himself and gave his brother a withering stare. Don had only just called him, but had failed to mention he was in the driveway. Or had he? Either way Charlie didn't really think he'd be so quick. Over his surprise he looked at Don and realized the guy was shattered. "You look crap."

Don ignored the comment, mainly because he was too busy yawning. Instead he began to inspect the wobbly wooden creation that was haphazardly sitting where Charlie's chalkboards normally had pride of place. He looked back at Charlie and shook his head, then silently demanded the screwdriver, which Charlie reluctantly handed over. Of course Charlie wanted the help but he really hated having to admit he wasn't capable of something.

Charlie sat back on the frayed sofa and watched his brother undo part of his work. He'd spent 4 hours trying to make sense of this desk form and, though he'd never admit it, he could not comprehend the engineering behind it. Without complete instructions he was left to his own imagination and it simply didn't stretch to such a visual reverse engineering of a desk; he could tell you what all the angles he'd created added up to though.

"You still working Pernichot?" Charlie asked through a yawn. His brother's tired appearance making Charlie realize how sleepy he was.

"Nup. He killed the last witness and skipped into Canada. We're handing it over in the morning."

"I thought you were on to him like two days ago?"

"We were, but we never got him. He got Rosemary Dawson first."

"I thought she was in a safe house."

"Yeah well they need to rethink that name now. Hey pass me that hammer will ya."

Charlie passed Don the hammer and then sat back on the sofa contemplating Don's words.

"Remind me never to use an FBI safe house if I need protection. Unless Nikki's my minder."

Don raised an eyebrow and looked back at Charlie, who simply shrugged.

"She's scary. I reckon she could take you down. Either by might or sassy argument."

Don chuckled, "What the hell were you thinking?"

"What?"

"These are hinges," Don held up a shiny hinge he had just removed from the corner of the desk, "not securing plates."

In his head Charlie went "oh" but to keep his dignity he struggled to maintain a blank look on his face, which seemed to make Don laugh even more.

Two hours later Don had corrected and erected the draftsman desk for Charlie and when it was done he sloffed onto the couch with Charlie.

"You wanna beer?"

"Coulda used one two hours ago!" Don gently barked.

Charlie looked at his brother and noticed he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. "How about a bed as a thankyou instead."

"How 'bout bed AND a beer."

"Done."

"Donnie. You shouldn't have!"

The voice woke Don up from a deep sleep and caused him to fall from the sofa most ungracefully. Lying on the floor in his boxers he squinted to see his dad inspecting the draftsman desk.

"Happy birthday dad."

"Don!" Charlie's indignant reply came from the top of the stairs. "That's my present to you dad."

Alan stared at Charlie, cocked his head and then looked at a very tired Don still lying on the floor, now yawning. "Right. Well. I'm impressed the store could put it together for you AND deliver it without me hearing last night." The scarcasm was even noticed by a sleepy Don but Charlie let it wash right off him.

"It's the thought that counts."

"Yes it is. And I'm glad you thought of Don to put it together because I know it won't collapse when I use it." Alan chuckled while giving Charlie a hug.

Don managed to drag himself off the floor during this exchange and pull on some pants, which immediately started vibrating. "Eppes," came the all too familiar response as Don answered the phone without looking at who it was – he didn't need to, his senses were right and it was work. "Alright, be there in twenty," he said as he looked at his watch. "Happy birthday again dad."

Collecting his shirt, Don fumbled with the buttons giving Alan enough time to rush to the kitchen and grab the sandwich he made last night for his game of golf today. He pushed it into Don's hands just as he was about to walk out the door.

And with that Don was gone. Or so Charlie and Alan thought. Within seconds Don traipsed back through the door with an unwrapped bottle of sake and a shiny new golf club. "Happy birthday dad."

And with that Don was really gone.

"What you say Colby?" Don asked as he walked into the Cal Sci university campus crime scene. He felt a bit guilty about not telling Charlie where he was going but he felt he needed to know what the situation was before he could involve his brother. Besides, Charlie could turn out to be a witness for anything that happened here so he needed to keep him at an arm's length for the time being.

"Jessica Soames. Don't know much about her yet as she'd lost a lot of blood and we couldn't get a statement. We assume she maybe came in early to do some research and ended up getting slugged in the thigh with a bullet."

"And why are we here?"

"LAPD requested us."

"Why? Cos of Charlie?" Don stretched the back of his neck, tired of having to get called to scenes unnecessarily.

"No. And when I say us I don't mean the FBI, I mean our team. Listen." Colby pressed play on an old fashioned Dictaphone.

"My name is Charlie Dawson. Rosemary is…was…my wife. The FBI were incapable of keeping her safe and so now I am going to make the FBI incapable. I will kill every consultant who works for the FBI every hour I can until the FBI can assure me that they will change their practices and never let another person die on their watch again. The first one dies at midday."

"That's it." Colby said as he switched off the Dictaphone.

"Ah great." Don put his head in his hands and slumped down into a lecture chair.

Colby looked at Don. "Nikki is at your dad's house now, collecting Charlie and taking him to a safe house. Munroe is collecting Amita and Larry."

Don nodded, hearing Charlie's words from the previous night cruelly echoing in his mind. "Nikki, good. What's this Charlie Dawson do for a living?"

"He's a builder. Works for that big firm Trentons."

"So no connection to law enforcement? No way he could work out where our safe houses are?"

Colby shrugged his shoulders and sighed, "Well Pernichot found 'em but I don't think we're talking 'bout someone in the same league here."

"So, LAPD think that my brother is the most obvious first target due to the connection to me right? But we need to contact all our consultants and ask them to come into the FBI office today."

"Is that a good idea? What if he plans to bomb the place."

"Let him try. I'll get the place swarming with SWAT and bomb squad. It's the best and safest we can do until we know what we're dealing with. What are we dealing with?"

"Not sure, this Soames girl seems to really have been a random target."

"Great. Well you go back to the office and manage the consultants and get David out here to give me a hand piecing together where this guy would go."

"No worries." Colby had the phone to his ear speed dialling David before he even left the room.

Don looked around at the room. There was barely anything out of place in the familiar classroom. A spent cartridge and its marker, and the blood stain, the only indications something had even occurred in the room. Both he and David were running on the least amount of sleep from the team so he felt it was better they were picking over clues rather than trying to prevent people from being picked off one by one.

His phone rang and seeing the caller ID he dreaded the conversation he was about to have. "Eppes."

"Don't Eppes me. If this is some kind of payback…"

"Charlie, I had nothing to do with this, it's just a coincidence."

"Spare me, I can help you guys. Throwing me in a safe house with Nikki hardly seems like the best idea, particularly considering our conversation last night."

"I didn't say you couldn't help us, you just help us from the safe house is all. Besides I had nothing to do with these events, it was all worked out before I turned up at the scene, your fate rested in Colby's hands."

"Fine. But I'm holding you responsible if Nikki hurts me. She's scary. I told you that. How can I help?"

"You tell me. We've got a widower wanting revenge on the FBI for what he sees as our inability to protect his wife. I dunno, doesn't seem that much of an unreasonable response. Killing every consultant we have seems a little out of the league of one guy but perhaps he has an arsenal we don't know about. Seriously, Charlie, that's all I've got at the moment. He came into CalSci, presumably looking for you or Amita or Larry, tapped one into this poor student Jessica Soames' thigh and then left us a message. Who knows where he'd go."

"Soames? Jessica Soames?"

"Yeah, she one of your students?"

"No. Larry's. Well no, not one of Larry's actually. She finished about two years ago."

"So what was she doing at CalSci at 7am in the morning?"

"Dunno. But she was really talented at physics, just didn't apply herself. I think she ended up being an engineer or something, works for a construction company I think. I have no idea why she'd be at CalSci but maybe she was meeting friends."

"At 7am? You guys really know how to party. Sorry, did you say construction company? You know what firm?"

"Sorry Don, that is the extent of my 'gossip' into past students. You could try Larry but I doubt he'd know much more."

Don noticed David wearily trampling into the crime scene and Don waved at him. "Ok thanks Charlie, just, stay safe and don't give Nikki any trouble. If you can think of any magic math solutions to this guy's whereabouts, let me know."

"It's not magic…" Charlie's little voice was instantly silenced as Don closed the phone on him and directed his attention to David.

David was staring at the scene. Only two LAPD officers remained to guard the evidence so Don and David could hear every echo in the small lecture room. "Hey Don. We on evidence babysitting duty?"

"Thought it would be kinder to those of us who were awake for all of those previous 36 hours. Colby's at base in charge of rounding up the consultants, you wanna swap?" Don said and arched an eyebrow.

The yawn which preceded David's, "no thanks", served to reiterate that neither agent was in the mood for any heavy detective work.

"I don't get any of it. It's just strange. One guy thinks he can take on the FBI. There might be a connection between the girl and Charlie Dawson and I'm not entirely sure what this guy's demands are, or what the FBI are supposed to do. Believe me, if we could stop anyone being killed on the FBI's watch we'd do it." Don was about to continue when he turned towards the door of the classroom at the sound of it being locked.

A tired, drawn man had quietly entered the room and locked the door behind him.

Don sensed something was not right with the guy, "Excuse me this is a crime scene you need to leave."

The man stumbled a few steps towards Don before speaking, "my girlfriend, my girlfriend was shot here."

Great. The last thing Don needed was this. "Then you need to be at the hospital sir, she's at?" Don turned around to see if the LAPD officers could help him out with the hospital name.

With Don's attention diverted the man swooped and made known his real intentions. He rushed Don while pulling out a revolver and instantly pressed the gun into Don's aching temples. The other agents instantly drew their weapons on Don and the man.

"Put your weapons down," he commanded the room. No one moved.

Don's fingers began to reach for his own weapon but in his tired state the man's vice-like grip easily thwarted him, and he removed the gun from Don himself. Instead of pocketing the prize though he threw it to an opposite corner of the room, not once taking his focus off Don and his head.

"I said drop your weapons."

"Not gonna happen Dawson. I assume you're Charlie Dawson." Don managed to bleat out despite his airway being restricted by Dawson's hold on him.

"Got it in one Agent Eppes. I'm the grieving widower." For a split second Dawson drew his gun away from Don and shot at the officer closest to David. Don noticed the guy had tried to reach for his phone. If Dawson had been intending to kill however, Don felt confident who would win a shoot out, with such bad aim coming from his hostage taker. "I said drop your weapons, but don't even think about contacting anyone else."

"Well now that bullet is certainly gonna grab attention so it's only a matter of time before you're overpowered." David said as he inched closer towards Dawson.

"Bring it on," Dawson whispered in response so that only Don could hear.

The whole situation felt off to Don and he really couldn't understand what was happening. "I don't get it Dawson, you shot someone here this morning, make threats to the FBI and then return to the scene of the crime? You're not a criminal, you're not thinking like a criminal so let's just end it here."

"Damn right I'm not a criminal, I'm a grieving widower. I lost my wife yesterday. And it's all your fault." The butt of the gun, still hot from discharge, burned itself into Don's temple as Dawson became angry.

David made another step towards Don and Dawson, "Dawson that girl you shot this morning is going to make it. You can still get out of this before you do something you regret."

Dawson laughed, "Regret? I'm not going to do something I regret."

The guy was not making any sense. None of it made sense to Don, not unless you took everything Dawson said as the truth. "Jessica Soames was your girlfriend."

"I already told you that, don't you FBI listen." Dawson began to get agitated by the events, he could hear footsteps outside the room and someone turned the knob in an effort to enter. He knew his time was limited.

Don felt Dawson's heartbeat thumping out of his chest and sensed he was panicking. "So your wife is murdered and you shoot your girlfriend."

"I had to." Dawson danced around the room to move away from the door, David followed close on his heels.

Don began to see a crack with which to enter the negotiations. "So, your wife found out you were cheating on her and you never got to say you were sorry. I understand. You're angry, you need someone to blame. The FBI is a big faceless organization, your girlfriend, well she should have never let you seduce her in the first place." Don and David shared a look, indicating that Don would make a move soon and David should be ready.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not insane. I shot her because I knew it would bring you out Agent Eppes. Your brother does work at CalSci doesn't he? You haven't moved him to a safe house I hope, those things'll kill you. You were responsible for keeping my wife safe. You failed. Jessica was a stupid distraction, Rosemary was the love of my life. I trusted you to protect my love and you failed. I failed to protect Rosemary's heart. I shattered her last moments on earth, but if you had kept her safe I could have remedied what I'd done. I could have made her happy again. She didn't deserve to die like this." Then Dawson bent down and whispered into Don's ear only, "You see if you can live with the pain, the guilt. I know I can't. I just want to die. Let me die."

Dawson cocked the gun on Don's head indicating he was going to shoot. He then swung the gun down shooting Don in the thigh. Don slumped giving David and the other officers a clear sight and they instantly fired at Dawson. Don fell heavily and awkwardly on to a step and his head bounced when it hit but he could barely hear the crunch it made due to the sound of gunfire echoing around the room. Dawson fell like a tonne of bricks next to Don, dead.

"Don! Medic. This guy's dead, but Don's bleeding pretty bad. Don!" David shook Don's shoulder's a couple of times but the bump to the head had clearly knocked him out.

A few moments later Don stirred slightly and his eyes cracked open. David smiled, "I knew you were tired but sleeping on the job man, not cool."

His heartbeat began to thump loudly as the darkness lifted and he fuzzily, and reluctantly, became conscious once more. A monitor he was attached to pinged in time with his quickening heart thumping in his chest. But it was the sound of snoring which came from the chair next to his bed which was really annoying. David Sinclair was trumpeting up a storm. No wonder he hasn't got a girlfriend, Don thought to himself, smiling in the process.

"Donnie. Thank god. I thought you were gonna sleep forever." Alan patted Don on his shoulder and then slumped in the chair next to David's.

"How…can I sleep…all that racket going on." Don struggled to joke as the fuzzy drugs tried to slow him down. "Charlie?"

"Ah," Alan sighed and leaned forward, "he's still mad that you didn't call him in to help."

Don shook his head. Bad idea.

"Just kidding. Sorta. He's at the office, trying to help them make sense of what this was all about. Apparently none of it makes sense." Alan looked over the top of his glasses at Don, somehow sensing that Don would provide the answer, not Charlie's math. It made sense that he did considering David was waiting for Don to wake up in the hospital rather than helping the team out. Mind you he did seem pretty exhausted to Alan.

"Won't." Don croaked.

"Won't what?" Alan prodded.

"Won't make sense. It was a death wish pure and simple. There's no sense or logic in it. Charlie can't help."

Alan saw that Don had tired himself explaining all that and he lifted the straw from his bedside water to Don's lips. "Well, you tell Charlie that. I'm not. The boy can't admit he is hopeless at constructing flat pack furniture, let alone understanding the range of human emotions."

Don giggled to himself and let the drugs take him back to that nice soft fuzzy place.

"That's what he's got a big brother for, to tell him the answers to questions he'll never understand. A big brother who senses and feels like no other person I've met. Besides your mother." Alan added knowing Don was asleep. "This is not how I planned to spend my birthday evening."

Don began softly snoring and strangely the noise was enough to wake David up. David looked at Alan and noticed his frown had relaxed, he even thought he saw a smile on his lips. "Did I miss something?"

Alan smiled. "Everyone always does when it comes to Donnie."