Adult-FanFiction.org : Television / Streaming

Baseball Don and Baby-Doll	By : Fel Category: M through R > NUMB3RS Views: 3442 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything associated. No money is made from this piece of fiction.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
A/N: This is quite a long chapter, and takes a LOT of dialogue straight from the pilot. This is a necessary evil, to show just how much things change with Charlie being female. Also to give a brief physical description of her.
On another note, �Amit� is the male form of �Amita�. Apparently, �Amita� is a Hebrew name. Go figure. I�m actually not a CA fan, but the sex-change was necessary for certain plans in the original.
-BD-
Chapter One: An Alliance Is Formed. In which Charlotte bugs Don into letting her help with a case.
-BD-
A small, silver capsule on wheels hurtled down the hill behind CalSci. A helmeted head could be seen poking out of the top, and several students were chasing it. Professor Larry Fleinhardt stepped out of his car in bewilderment as the capsule sped past a speed detector, and the students cheered. A good-looking young man with Indian colouring, whom Larry recognised as Amit Ramajuan, stepped forward whilst noting things down on a clipboard.
�Twenty-one point zero-seven seconds, sixty-eight point three miles per hour.� He smiled as the capsule�s occupant removed her helmet, letting a mass of curly black hair fall free. �No one would ever guess you don�t have a driver�s licence.�
�MIT and Stamford can�t touch that!� The young woman looked ecstatic as the students gathered around to check the capsule and open it up.
�Professor Charlotte Margaret Eppes,� Larry stepped forward, shaking his head in resignation.
�Larry!� Charlie smiled up at him. �Gimme a hand.� Larry obligingly helped her to climb out of the capsule, holding onto her hand in an effort to keep her attention for more than the usual three seconds.
�So this is what distracts you from helping me, your friend, your colleague, win the Nobel prize for my eleven dimension super-gravity theory?�
Charlie patted him on the back and accepted a notebook and pencil from Amit before trying to explain what they were doing.
�Well, in a way, this project is related to your theory.� She gave Larry her most winning smile. Unfortunately, he had become immune to it years ago.
�Wai, uh, I, this go-kart!?� Larry eventually managed to get out, and Ami looked up in amusement before going back to his notes. To be fair, that had pretty much been his response to the experiment as well, but Charlie had been adamant about the designs.
�Go-kart?� Charlie gave a short laugh. �This, this isn�t a go-kart.� Larry spread his hands toward the contraption, looking completely befuddled, whilst Charlie started moving around it and extolling its virtues.
�This is an extreme gravity vehicle. Its shape will help inform the next generation of high-performance automobiles.�
�Okay, okay,� Larry interrupted before she could really get going. �Hooray for making things go faster, but I fail to see how this will provide me with the necessary mathematical breakthroughs I need to redefine the fabric of the cosmos!�
Charlie gave him a Look, then pointedly went back to examining the vehicle. She was certain that she could make it go even faster. Maybe if she added a little something to the sides to help with drag� This left her hapless assistant to deal with the flummoxed professor.
�You know,� Amit tried, �some physicists do their own math. Ed Whitton, Richard Feynman��
�Hurtful,� Larry wagged a finger at him. �I actually knew Feynman! I actually think of him often. You know, here�s a discussion for you: why do we remember the past, and not the future?�
Momentarily thrown, Amit gave him a blank look, so Larry pointed to the math professor herself, who quickly stifled an eye-roll.
�That�s a tough one, Larry. Look, I�ll have time on Monday, I�ll run through some equations for you.� She really hoped that would be enough to placate her friend, and gave him a hopeful smile. Larry sighed and nodded, then headed back to his car. He knew that was as much as he�d get out of the brilliant young mathematician right now.
-BD-
Later that night, Charlie could hear her big brother enter the house, and she smiled to herself. They�d arrived at an uneasy peace not long after Don had moved out of the family home for the second time. While living under the same roof there was always an unexplained tension between them that she couldn�t figure out, but not having to deal with each other�s presence at all times had let them relax a little, and they were slowly finding common ground again. She hurried down the stairs, nearly running into Don as she navigated the final corner.
�Hey!� Charlie smiled at him as he caught and steadied her. �What�s going on? What are you doing here?�
�Just making sure you don�t take complete and total advantage of Dad,� Don muttered, though the twinkle in his dark eyes told her he was joking.
�Are you kidding?� She quipped back. �He wouldn�t know what to do without me.� A soft snort of laughter was her only response as Don headed up the stairs, so Charlie started to head into the dining room.
Her interest, however, was caught by the files Don had left lying on the table in the living room. In particular, the map, with its bright red dots. Equations and patterns immediately leapt into her mind, and it took all of her effort to keep seeing what was physically in front of her. She was so lost in her own world of numbers that she didn�t hear Don coming back down the stairs.
�Charlie, what do you think you�re doing?� His voice was soft, as though he didn�t want to spook his sister, but she just looked at him in interest.
�Crime scenes. What kind of crimes-� She was interrupted as Don lightly put his hands at her waist and pulled her away, before he started re-rolling the map.
�Get away from here!� Now he was mad, she could hear it in his voice, but her curiosity was piqued. �These are confidential case files!�
Charlie bit back a smirk. Technically she was able to be read into any investigation, thanks to her clearance� but Don didn�t know that yet.
�She just looked at the map,� Alan decided to attempt to mediate. �I made sure she didn�t go through anything else.�
�Good!� Don spat out as he grabbed his tie. Charlie folded her arms across her chest and followed him to the hall mirror.
�Thirteen crime scenes spread over a contained region,� she commented. �You guys are analysing the significance of those locations?� Don gave her an incredulous look, before continuing with the task at hand.
�Yeah, it�s called �Predictive Analysis�, the FBI pioneered it. I trained in it at Quantico, and it doesn�t work on sado-serial crimes.�
Charlie nodded as she leaned against the doorframe in a pose that would give most of her students pleasant dreams. Don stared for a moment, then shook himself and forcefully dragged his eyes away and back to the mirror.
�There�s no way to predict the location of the next attack,� he continued, hoping to keep her from the question he knew would follow soon.
�Y�know,� Charlie started, and Don stifled a groan. �I helped you out on that stock fraud mess. And the IRS extortion case.�
�Yeah,� Don admitted, �this is different. It�s not about numbers.�
Charlie gave him an amused look, before she turned to walk away.
�Everything is numbers.�
-BD-
Charlie raced into the bullpen, carrying maps and notebooks in her arms. Hot on her heels was Amit, her research assistant, slightly more organised but just as excited. The professor had worked nearly non-stop ever since her conversation with Larry, and had narrowed down an area to work from.
For her part, Charlie was ecstatic about being allowed to help Don. She�d done this sort of work plenty of times in the past for other agencies, but he didn�t seem to realise just how many things her equations could be applied to.
Don ushered them both into the room that they were using as command centre for the case. Both Eppes siblings ignored the amused looks form the other agents at Charlie�s unprofessional entrance � and appearance. While Don was in a dress-shirt and suit pants, and even Amit looked well-presented if casual, Charlie was wearing her usual combination of whatever clothes happened to be lying around when she got dressed that morning.
So today, it was three-quarter length baggy jeans, with odd socks and white sneakers, a form-fitting tank-top, and one of Don�s long-sleeved shirts on top. She hadn�t bothered with makeup, and her long mane of curly black hair was in a messy pony-tail. Alan kept telling her that she would be very attractive if she�d just put a little more effort into her appearance. Unfortunately for him, she wasn�t interested in attracting a husband, so didn�t see much point in wasting time on her looks, time that could be spent with her beloved chalkboards.
Don stifled a grin as he recognised his shirt, and briefly wondered where she�d picked it up from, but didn�t say anything. He was so used to her dressing like that, he wasn�t particularly bothered. What did bother him, though, were the looks she was oblivious to, coming from some of the other agents. The men looked like they were undressing her with their eyes, and the women looked condescending. Don had to bite his tongue to keep from going into all-out, protective big-brother mode. That had been a big problem for them in the past, and he needed to learn to let Charlie handle herself. Didn�t mean he had to like it, though.
�Amit, can you put the first map right up here, please?� Charlie pushed some whiteboards out of the way to reveal a giant pin-board.
Don automatically moved forward to help the young man, and the two grinned at each other. They both knew how Charlie could get when she was on a roll.
�Now this map,� the professor spoke to the room as if they were her students, �was generated by an equation.� She turned and started to clean off a whiteboard, and Amit winced.
�Wait, Charlie, don�t erase that!� He was concerned that she was destroying something case-related in her haste, but Terry Lake, Don�s partner, hurried to reassure them.
�No, it�s okay, it�s an old case.� At the same time, Don waved a dismissive hand. Charlie just kept going, and Don figured she probably hadn�t even noticed the interruption.
�I�m writing the equation here,� she paused as she did so, �in abbreviated form. I�ve pin-pointed the area most likely to be the perpetrator�s residence.�
�You got the guy�s address?� Assistant Director Merrick asked, obviously not buying it.
�Not the address, no,� Charlie corrected him. �An approximate base. Okay, I�m using some of the same techniques that physicists use to find black holes, which can�t be detected in any way, other than the effect that they have on, on objects around them.�
She seemed to be growing a little nervous, and Don flicked his eyes around the room. A couple of guys in the corner looked to be just short of laughing out loud at her, whilst everyone else looked highly sceptical. Even Amit looked a little lost, which wasn�t promising.
Don returned his gaze to his sister and nodded at her to keep going. He had her back.
�Black holes?� Merrick asked, and Don pushed the annoyance down.
�Walt, she based her work on FBI theories of serial crime,� he explained, trying not to sound confrontational. Charlie flashed him a smile, while Merrick still didn�t seem convinced.
�Okay, professor,� Merrick sighed, �why don�t you just walk us through it.�
Charlie nodded and turned back to her �class�, already back into teaching mode.
�Amit, can you put up the enlarged version?� He and Don did so, while Charlie kept talking. �The first point, really, to take into account is that when picking places to attack a victim, or to dump a body, the perpetrator will choose sites that appear to be selected at random. He doesn�t want you to make any conclusions about where he lives, what areas he frequents.�
�Right,� Don nodded. This was similar to what he himself had told Charlie the previous night.
�You know what?� Charlie suddenly grinned, and Don felt a little worried. �Let�s do an elementary demonstration. Okay, so can you help me just move this back�� Merrick looked on in concern as Charlie set about reorganising the room. Don just sighed and went along with it.
�Just distribute yourselves randomly across this area here,� Charlie instructed her �volunteers�. Amit bit back a laugh � he recognised the demonstration. The professor always had loved to make her lectures interactive, claiming that it helped to keep the information in the students� heads. Such as the Eppes Classic � turning the classroom into a casino to explain chance and probability.
�Now,� Charlie grinned as the agents stopped moving, �look what you�ve done. You have distributed yourselves,� she started moving between them, using herself as a measuring stick, �at equal intervals.�
Amit smiled fondly at her. The way she moved through the sea of bodies, it was almost as though she were dancing.
�While true random patterns,� Charlie continued, �will include clusters.� Don nodded as the light bulb came on. Terry smiled, getting it as well.
�We�re spaced too evenly,� she said, and Charlie nodded.
�Exactly. It�s pretty difficult to consciously pick a random sequence. Your suspect tried but, like you, wound up with roughly even spacing.� She turned back to the map.
�In trying to avoid a pattern, he wound up with one anyway?� Terry�s voice was optimistic as everyone took their seats again. Patterns they could work with.
�Yep. Locations purposefully distanced from a site not on your map, but clearly marked in the perpetrator�s mind. Namely his residence. The equation,� she quickly turned and underlined it, �reveals the probability that each area has of being the subject�s base. Yellow�s the hot zone.�
�I had a feeling about Silver Lake,� Terry commented as she glanced at Don, who appeared to be deep in thought.
�I estimate an eighty-seven percent chance he lives in that area,� Charlie confirmed.
�You know,� Merrick started, and Charlie turned to look at him. �I don�t know a lot about mathematics, but this doesn�t make any sense to me.� Don bit back a groan, then smirked as Charlie drew her shoulders back, ready to defend her theory. Attacks on her math, she could definitely deal with.
�It makes more sense than this,� she commented softly as she lifted the lottery ticket from Merrick�s shirt pocket.
�You can�t win if you don�t buy a ticket,� he snapped as he snatched it back. Charlie, however, was grinning madly.
�Yes, this is truth. However, the odds of this one being the winning ticket are one,� she dashed back to the whiteboard, �in forty-one million. Which means, if you bought twenty tickets every week, you would win the jackpot once every forty thousand years.� She had been scribbling the equation as she spoke, and now capped the marker with a flourish. Terry grinned and risked a glance at Don. He was hiding a fond smile behind a hand. After receiving that speech when Charlie was seven, none of the Eppes family had ever purchased a lottery ticket again.
�Really?� Merrick asked, a little dejected.
�Yep,� Charlie, on the other hand, sounded triumphant. �It�s basic probability theory.� She stuck her hands in her pockets and looked around, waiting to see if someone else would challenge her. Don and Terry were avoiding catching each other�s eye, knowing that they�d crack up laughing if they did. It wasn�t every day that AD Merrick was proven wrong, and they both wished that Charlie would do it more often.
�Agent Eppes!� David Sinclair ran into the room then. �We found the dead girl�s car. It�s in a parking structure on West Hollywood.� The room sprung back to life as agents rose to resume work on the case.
�Let�s go,� Don barked out orders. �Test it. Run it against cases from the past that have been solved. Miller! Pull some files for her to work with!�
In seconds, Charlie and Merrick were standing alone in the room while Amit went with Miller to collect some files. Charlie turned to her companion with a winning smile.
�So, you ever play craps?�
-BD-
�Aren�t you going to introduce me to your boyfriend?� Alan commented to his youngest whilst feeding the pet cockatoo.
�You�ve met him before,� Charlie answered wearily, �he�s not my boyfriend, I�m his thesis advisor.�
�Does that mean he can�t be your boyfriend?�
�It�s against the rules,� she tried pointing out, but Alan was having none of it.
�Well, screw the rules. What�s more important: learning, or love?� Charlie couldn�t help the smile that graced her features. Amit looked amused as well.
�Anyway,� Charlie looked up, still smiling, �aren�t you meant to be threatening any man who comes near me? Or are you confident that Don has that covered?�
�Charlie, you�re nearly thirty. I want grandchildren, and Lord knows your brother�s not going to oblige any time soon. So, you need to get a boyfriend.�
�I dunno,� Charlie turned back to her work. �I could always ask Larry to be a sperm donor.� Alan levelled a glare at her.
�If you do that, I�m disowning you.�
Professor and student both laughed. Amit was picturing young curly-haired kids who were a cross between the physicist and the mathematician. It was a cute � but scary � image.
-BD-
Charlie slammed the phone down in anger. The math wasn�t wrong! She knew that it couldn�t be wrong. But Don had said all the men in the hot zone had been cleared. Growling in frustration, she turned back to the blackboard and picked up the chalk. She would find the answer, even if she had to stay here all week to do it.
In the background, she could vaguely hear Amit speaking, but couldn�t hear the words. It was probably some platitude about how they�d tried their best. He didn�t seem to understand just how important this was.
A hand touched her arm gently, and she whirled around while taking a step back.
�I am trying,� she ground out through gritted teeth, �to think!� She felt a brief pang of guilt as pain flashed through Amit�s eyes, but refused to allow herself to apologise. Charlie turned back to the board, and didn�t even notice when the young man quietly slipped from the room.
-BD-
�I can�t get my head around it,� Charlie whispered as she sat, staring at her hands. Even after talking to Larry, she still couldn�t figure out what was wrong.
�What are we missing?� Don asked as he paced in front of the window. �Where�s the problem, and how do we make it work?� He was just as determined to solve the problem as his little sister was. Unfortunately, reality seemed to be against them. �We have to make it work.�
�You have to retest it,� Charlie rose from her seat and approached Don. �We need another run.�
�Yeah, well, that�s not gonna happen.� Don hadn�t told his family about being taken off the case yet. He still found it galling� hence why he was still working on it behind Merrick�s back.
�Well, I know that it�s gonna be hard talking your boss into doing it again,� Charlie gestured with her hands as she spoke �but we can�t stop after one attempt.�
�Charlie.�
�These kinds of new methods require repeated trials.�
�Charlie,� Don hated having to say this to her, �I�m not on the case anymore.� Charlie froze, her mind already jumping to the obvious conclusion.
�Why?� Fear and resignation mingled into the one word, making Don feel even worse. He shot a glance at his father, who turned away. How he handled this was up to Don.
�Because, my supervisor wanted fresh eyes on it.� He stumbled over the words a little, and the look on Charlie�s face said it all. She knew that her unorthodox equation had ruined things for Don. Once again, by trying to help him, she�d royally screwed things up.
�Well maybe the math isn�t the problem,� Alan spoke for the first time, and both his children turned to look at him.
�What do you mean?� Charlie asked.
�Well, you just said that there was something you couldn�t get your head around. And I know for a fact that it can�t be the math.� His words echoed Don�s own feelings.
�What else is there?� The young professor looked up at her father like a lost puppy.
�Wait, maybe he�s right,� Don started moving again in an effort to get his brain working. �I mean, that sprinkler, that totally made sense. That you could track back from the locations, find out where the guy lives. Right? Totally made sense. Maybe we�re thinking about this guy in too narrow a focus.�
�Are you saying I need to consider more than his criminal activities?� Charlie hadn�t quite caught up yet, so Don continued.
�No, not exactly. I�m saying that maybe we need to consider more than just where he lives. Look at me: if you designed an equation to find my origin, you wouldn�t get my apartment, �cause I�m almost never there! My base would be my office.�
Charlie stepped toward the window, numbers and formulae flashing through her mind. She could already see the start of how to split the end result.
�Which means�� She spoke slowly, trying to form words over the roar of numbers in her head, �we use� his home and his work� as points of origin.�
�Exactly!� Don finally sounded triumphant. They could do this.
�I can design an equation to identify two hot zones.� Her voice was soft, almost lifeless, and for a moment Don was worried. �Why didn�t I think of that?� The life came flooding back to her, and Don smiled as he shrugged. He knew she�d get it eventually.
-BD-
�Hey, Charlie!� Don called as Charlie climbed out of the squad car. She looked a little overwhelmed at all the activity going on around her. �Hey, c�mere. Something I wanna show you.� He laid a hand on her shoulder, guiding her to what he�d called her for.
�Y�know, Holdane lived in Century City.� Charlie looked disgusted, but Don continued. �But he just moved there three weeks ago. Look where he used to live.�
The parking permit was for Silver Lake, Charlie�s original hot zone. She looked up at Don, comprehension dawning.
�That�s why we couldn�t find him in the first hot zone.� Don�s voice was a mix of soothing and awe.
�He was there,� Charlie smiled in triumph, �but he moved.� Don smiled back.
�Hell of an equation, Charlie.�
The siblings looked around at the controlled chaos around them, and Don figured he should get Charlie home. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders in a half-hug, which she leaned into. Physical contact was fairly rare between the two, and cherished when it occurred. As such, Don decided to take a chance and dropped his head to press a brief kiss to his sister�s forehead, and was rewarded with a brilliant smile.
As Don led her back to his car, Charlie couldn�t resist getting one more shot in.
�Everything is numbers.�
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Baseball Don and Baby-Doll