love equations -- charlie eppes x reader - numb3rs

ch ;; 12

''well, you know.. he was a police officer. they were working a case one day of a... bank robbery or something along those lines and my dad.. did not come back from the case. we went three days without knowing where he was until the nypd made their 'official' memorial post that said my father had died.'' ciara explained, hitting the ground with her golf club.

after a few more moments of conversation and a hug from alan, they all got started on their golf. ''now all you have to do is just trust your instincts and let me watch for the ball.'' alan explained to his son. ''go ahead.... all right, that was... better.'' alan said hesitantly. charlie's face dropped into one of annoyment  ''i stink.'' he said, blankly.

''charlie, do you always have to excel at what you do?'' alan asked half-sarcastically, picking up his own golf club. ''this shouldn't be happening. i've worked these numbers.'' charlie said, rubbing his eyes. ''hey, come on, this is what is known as fun. out here together in the... in the fresh air. isn't that enough?'' alan asked, putting a hand on his sons shoulder.

''yeah i mean, c'mon, charlie. it's just... where did you learn to hit the ball like that, man? your poor posture with that hit.'' she laughed. charlie sighed. ''don't get me wrong. it's not like I'm not enjoying myself, it's just, I'm just surprised the math isn't giving me an edge.'' he said, emphasizing the word edge.

''yeah. all right, now you just... watch and learn. now you sit down like you're on a stick, hmm? and let your hands work together. draw the club back slowly...'' and with that, alan smacked the ball out. shortly after, ciara excused herself to get back to work, telling charlie he may be needed shortly.

~~~'~~~'~~~

''hey, sorry I'm late. dad wanted to walk. took us a little longer to get back to the clubhouse than I'd estimated.'' charlie said, walking into the office. ''it's okay. charlie, this is erica weston from the ntsb. she specializes in what they call unidentified aerial events.'' don introduced the woman.

''hi.'' she said, shaking his hand. ''pleasure. nice meeting you.'' charlie said politely, taking her hand and shaking it. ''likewise. you're right on time. your friend just finished loading our radar images.'' erica said, pointing to ciara on the computer.  charlie came down, his chin hovering over ciara's shoulder. ''this is civilian air traffic control?'' he asked, glancing over at erica.

''right. these blips are commercial airliners. the others are small planes, but over here, where our bogey was, there's nothing.'' erica explained, pointing to the areas on the computer as she spoke. ''hmm. what do you think?'' charlie asked, turning to look at ciara.

''well,'' she started slowly, ''there's a lot of noise in the system.'' she said, looking up at charlie, who was still hovering over her shoulder. ''hmm. what about trying the noisy edge?'' charlie suggested. ''what's that?'' don asked, coming over to the two of them.

 ''well, there's random noise in every radar system. and sometimes the signals the radar's designed to pick up are so weak, they're obscured by the noise. here. listen.'' ciara turned up the radio, and all that came through was hissing. ''that noise you're hearing is really the noise of the system. without a signal, all we're hearing is random energy.'' charlie explained, looking at don.