love equations -- charlie eppes x reader - numb3rs

ch ;; 8

after solving the case with counterfeit money, the fbi agency was grateful to have some downtime. and now, charlie, don, david, larry, and ciara all sat at charlie's kitchen table, playing poker. don threw down a few cards, looking at charlie who was slightly grinning.

''do i even need to ask?'' he questioned, staring at charlie. charlie smiled, turning his cards over to show everyone his hand. ''i've only played once before. i actually have a one in eight chance of hitting a set when I'm holding a pocket pair. i'm about 50/50 to draw a flush with three suited cards in my hand, two off the draw. i also count my outs. i, uh, multiply by two. i- i add one. that's roughly my percentage of hitting.'' charlie explained to the table.

ciara scoffed lightly, looking up behind her where alan was standing. ''i'll be asking you soon to take my seat. your son is killing us, okay?'' she joked. alan shook his head. ''no, not me. the only other time charlie played, i learned my lesson about gambling with a mathematician.'' alan said, patting ciara on the shoulders.

''weren't we playing with bottle caps?'' charlie called out to his father. ''yeah, or else you would have walked away with the pink slip to my car!'' alan called back.

after a few more hours of talking, don got a call on his phone. ''fbi, pack up, we gotta go. shooting.'' ciara groaned, dropping her head for a second before pushing herself up out of her chair.

'~~''~~'

''coroner put time of death around 8:00 this morning. victim's name is trevor riley, 27. wanted on a federal warrant for stock fraud.'' terry briefed don, david, and ciara as they walked up onto the scene. after gathering all the information that they could, they headed back to the agency. david and terry went ahead to investigate further into the situation, while don and ciara went to go look for charlie.

''hello? anybody home?'' don called out, walking through the front door of his brothers house.  ''yeah, donny, i'm here. oh, hello to you as well, ciara.'' alan greeted.  ''hey, dad, where's charlie?'' don asked, cutting right to the point. ''oh, I was just talking to charlie. he said your fbi team needs another hitter. why aren't you playing baseball with them?'' alan asked, curious. ciara had learn to know quite a bit of the eppes' family's past. she knew that, when don was in highschool, he was on the baseball team. it came to be a shock to her, as well, that don didn't want to partake in the fbi team.

''because I don't have time for that. hey, charlie.'' don walked over to his little brother.  ''you should play. i mean, there's no reason to waste that experience. they need a power hitter.'' he added onto what his father said. ''look, you got a minute?'' don queried, slightly annoyed. ''that's what I was getting at.'' charlie said, somewhat sarcastically. ''all right, thanks.''

''actually, I got a seminar in about a half hour.'' charlie remembered, glancing at the clock above don's head. ''just give us a minute, all right? this is a copy of a file we pulled off a computer that we think shows some kind of fraud. the problem is our accountants are up to their necks in this big racketeering case and they're not going to be able to get to it till next week.'' ciara explained to charlie. charlie looked between her and his brother, sighing. 

''well, love to help, but I'm preparing a seminar on zeros of random orthogonal polynomials.'' charlie said, grabbing his briefcase. ciara groaned, slightly putting her arm out to stop charlie. ''this really isn't an advanced application.'' she begged. don cut in, ''look, please, just do me a favor, all right? 15 months ago, I closed a case: the murder of a young mother. now, the guy's in jail, but the owner of the computer we're talking about here was just killed in the exact same way.'' don explained.