Brownian, by Frostfire, for the Death challenge

[frostfire-17.livejournal.com]

Title: Frostfire
Pairing/Characters: Colby and Charlie
Rating/Category: PG
Word Count: 1287
Spoilers: heavy for Rampage
Summary: Colby likes his new job, most of the time.
Notes/Warnings: for dsudis, because she asked.

Colby likes being an FBI agent a hell of a lot more than he liked being a soldier. There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of them are big—like a firm moral position and commitment to help people, say—and some of them are small, like being able to order pizza whenever the hell he wants. There’s also a couple of things he could do without—suits, Jesus, and Don when he’s in a seriously bad mood, and the copy machine that hates him—but everything else pretty much pales behind the major thing, the real reason why he’s keeping his ass right here in this office. Killing people is no longer his job description, and there’s times—middle of the night, cold sweat, machine guns in his ears—when he thinks that’d be enough to keep him coming back to a job at a meat-packing plant.

And yes, he has to fire his gun sometimes. But. He’s not starting out with intent to kill anyone, he’s trying to put them in prison, which is a whole different ball game. And it’s not something that has him sweating through the nights trying to justify his own actions. If they have to take down a rapist or a killer to keep crimes from being committed again, that’s what they have to do, and it’s keeping the peace, and it’s saving lives.

In Afghanistan, Colby was not keeping peace. Ultimately, maybe. On a microcosmic level, to probably-misquote Professor Eppes, the results weren’t visible, and all any of them really saw was death. Colby’s good enough at compartmentalizing that he had a good us vs. them thing going, but—he’s killed a lot of people. And, probably, they weren’t all bad people.

He’s been okay with that—moved past it, living a new life now, where everyone he kills is a bad guy, and he only really has to kill anyone once in a blue moon.

But—killing someone by accident? It’s something that happens all the time in a war, and probably never inside the LA FBI office building before Colby got there. It’s depressing and humiliating and painful, and someday, maybe, he’ll forgive himself for it, but that day is not today, no matter how much David and Megan and Don try to make him feel better.

At least he’s working on the case, still, despite not being cleared for field duty. Dammit.

He’s spent today hunched over the computers—again, still—and he’s made some progress. Everyone else has been working this from the office a lot, too, which is—okay, he appreciates their help and support and they can seriously hold the fucking pity.

Calm down, Colby. Jesus.

Midafternoon, he looks around warily for sympathetic coworkers, considers taking a break. He’s just stood up when he sees Charlie wandering by, looking like he’s turned a wrong corner and gotten lost.

“Hey, Charlie,” Colby says. “Haven’t seen you here in awhile. How’s everything?”

Charlie turns toward him, and okay, he doesn’t just look lost, he looks bruised. Colby has a moment of looking around for Don, but the big brother isn’t around to—do the big brother thing. “Charlie, you okay?”

Charlie swallows. “I just—I haven’t been back, since.” He’s staring at a hole in the glass, like it can cut him just from looking.

Colby remembers, post-shooting, Don patting Charlie down, speaking sharply—Are you hit? Are you okay? and Charlie, unfocused, hunched in on himself. Not hit, not okay.

“How do you do it?” Charlie asked, and Colby starts, looks up.

Charlie’s turned his stare from the glass to Colby, but it’s the same look. Like Colby can hurt him without even trying, and Charlie’s just bracing for it. “How do I do what?” Colby asks, trying to be careful. Don will—if he breaks Don’s little brother, he’s pretty sure he’s going to hell anyway, forget what Don will do.

“You all. You, Don, Megan. A man comes into your office, the place where you work every day, and shoots people, and you all just brush it off. I could barely bring myself to come here today.” Charlie’s eyes are wide, confused.

Colby drags in a breath. “Maybe Don and Megan have brushed it off.”

Charlie focuses. “Not you.” Focuses more. “Something’s wrong.”

Colby has seen Charlie do this before, backbrain-forebrain switch, from emotional to analytical in a second, like a switch. He appreciates it, today, because it’s better to answer questions than to try and handle soft, hurting eyes. “I don’t know if you heard,” he says, and tells Charlie about the bullet, McCall dead, the God-knows-how-much wasted effort on a motive that didn’t exist. An accident.

Charlie’s razor-sharp now, no sign of the bruised face and lost eyes. “Colby, have you ever heard of Brownian motion?”

“Don mentioned something about it.” Colby frowns. “And—physics. Forever ago. No idea what it means.”

Charlie steers him back into the office, sits them both down, talking as he goes. “Brownian motion was the subject of one of Einstein’s three great papers of 1905. Basically, it was the observation that when pollen grains, which are incredibly small, were dropped into a liquid, they’d move. And their movement described an absolutely random pattern.” Charlie leans forward. “This was one of the early pieces of evidences about the nature of matter because, as Einstein later put forward in his paper, the reason the pollen grains were moving was the molecules bumping against them. And the movement was totally random.”

Colby shakes his head. “All Don mentioned was something about pool.”

Charlie smiles, eye contact for a second and dropping back down. Colby’s noticed that that’s Charlie’s smile, there, the one-second wonder. Even Don doesn’t get more. “Think of Schane as a pool ball, ricocheting off obstacles. His motion was almost entirely Brownian. Random.”

Colby shakes his head. “Charlie, is this your way of telling me, don’t worry, it was just an accident?”

“Brownian motion is random, Colby,” says Charlie, watching him seriously. “Without knowing every variable affecting his actions, you couldn’t have predicted where he would move next. I remember—” and the analytical face is breaking down; Colby can see the confused trauma showing through—“I remember the shot. There was no way, from my position, with the data I had at the time, to predict where that bullet was going to go. If I had been standing just two inches—” Charlie stops.

And then Don’s there, way too late and at absolutely the right time, leaning in the room and saying, “Hey, Charlie, we got your string, Amita has it.”

Charlie nods quickly. “Great, thanks, Don. I’ll just—go work on that.” And he slips out the door, Colby watching him helplessly, and Don watching Colby.

“You say something to him?” Don asks after a second.

Colby shakes his head. “He’s just shaken up.” And bruised, and lost.

Don nods and leaves. He doesn’t get it.

Colby gets it. He saw guys like Charlie in the war.

Charlie wouldn’t last five minutes, and Colby knows it, and this is why he likes his new job. Because tomorrow, if he wanted, he could go see Charlie at CalSci, and he’d be a little shaken up but he’d be there in his office, and Colby could make casual conversation and maybe take a gumball for Charlie to record, and Charlie wouldn’t be broken open and bleeding into Afghani rock and sand.

His new job is, on the whole, so much of an improvement he can’t even really measure it.

“Brownian,” he says out loud. It sounds better than accident.

He goes out to watch Charlie and Amita cover the office in string.

end

Comments

[castalie.livejournal.com]

You know, when s2 started, I wasn't so big on Colby. But he grew on me though and, one day, I realised I really liked the guy, he could definitely stay. But, say, if I hadn't had a change of heart? I think fics like this would have made me reconsider, anyway :-)

Great fic, wonderful characterisation - of both Colby and Charlie. I loved the way Colby saw Charlie. And loved the way they interacted with each other.

Loved it!

[castalie.livejournal.com]

Dude, my comment is all in italics and I didn't use a single code? Man, LJ is funny sometimes *sigh*

[dsudis.livejournal.com]

oh, *HEART*. Thank you for this! Because this is so very my Colby--shaken up, but still moving, still doing his job and looking after those less able to look after themselves, and this:

Colby could make casual conversation and maybe take a gumball for Charlie to record, and Charlie wouldn’t be broken open and bleeding into Afghani rock and sand.

just made my breath catch, because yes. Perfect!

[jic]

I don't know Colby and I don't watch Numb3rs, but I love this. Just another instance of reading something only because it has your name on it. *g* Lovely.

(Did you close the italics tag at the end?)

[joolz01.livejournal.com]

I love this look at Colby's thoughts, his appreciation of where he is now and his observations on Charlie. Thanks for a nice fic!

[mojokid.livejournal.com]

This is great. This Colby is perfect, and I love the stuff he notices about Charlie, especially:

Colby remembers, post-shooting, Don patting Charlie down, speaking sharply—Are you hit? Are you okay? and Charlie, unfocused, hunched in on himself. Not hit, not okay.

and

Colby has seen Charlie do this before, backbrain-forebrain switch, from emotional to analytical in a second, like a switch.

Really lovely.

[umbralillium.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEEEE! This? Was SOSOSO good! No one can resist Charlie when he's looking lost and bruised. *cuddles him*

Colby could make casual conversation and maybe take a gumball for Charlie to record

Yes! Do it! Then take him out to lunch! *bounce*

*shifty eyes* Er, yeah, just my inner Charlie/Colby fangirl making her opinion known.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

wow, you may have written this for dsudis, but you wrote it for me, too, anyway. *g* I was just bemoaning the lack of Charlie/Colby the other day, and as far as I'm concerned, this totally counts, and I adored it. I just love how Colby's own problem completely snapped Charlie into help mode, and ended up helping them both!

[lalejandra.livejournal.com]

Man, Colby is my favorite, and this is just so right.

[paradise-city.livejournal.com]

Late to the party, since I just saw this recced, but this was a great peace. You gave great Colby here.

[swingandswirl]

...

I want to take this fic and hug and squeeze it and call it George. Because it's that damn precious and perfect. You've managed to capture Colby's angst and Charlie's... hurt, I guess is the best word for it, so so beautifully, and that line about Charlie lying on Afghani rock is just... wow.

Great job, and I would absolutely love to see more of your work!