No I'm not dead, I'm just very disappointed about the finale ending whoops
Hope this longer-ish one shot makes up for me not writing in a while!
December 2012
Toby snuck into the garage, looking for something, anything, to distract him. It was his and Amy's anniversary today (or it would have been, if she hadn't finally left him for the guy she had been sneaking around with for almost an year), and he was smart enough to know that going to the tables today would just mean him being a beaten up body in some dark alley the next morning.
Walter had said something about going out of town for the weekend, having finally come out of the rabbit hole that was Collins and the destruction he had unleashed on the team. Toby didn't quite know where, or for what, the head genius was going, but frankly he was grateful for the solitude without being constantly watched like he was a child. Which, to be fair, was how he has been acting like, but still.
His plans for private self-pity were disrupted, however, but the sound of something heavy being dragged across on the upper floor. He froze for a minute, hoping it wasn't an intruder, before the notes from the most beautiful rendition of River Flows in You that he had ever heard started filling the garage. Since when did we even have a piano here? he thought to himself as he quietly crept up the stairs.
It couldn't be Walter, Mr I-Only-State-Facts wouldn't lie about leaving town, and Sylvester wouldn't dare come into the garage alone. He didn't quite know what had happened with Collins, but the nutcase hadn't come back in a few months, so the only viable person would be-
Toby followed the sounds through the loft and to the doorway of a back room he hadn't known existed, to see Happy at the piano, playing so smoothly as if she had never spent more than an hour apart from it. She switched from Yiruma to Pachelbel's Canon so smoothly that a less astute listener would have taken too long to realize the change.
He couldn't help but be taken by her and how unguarded she was, for once. Her jacket was folded across a nearby chair, and she looked so at peace, like nothing else mattered. Toby had always felt something for her, ever since Walter had called her out from her back workshop to meet him on his first day. That connection had only grown stronger over time, but she had never seemed to reciprocate any of it. Anyway he had been dating, and subsequently proposed to, Amy then, so he had forced those thoughts away.
They had nonetheless become friends over time, despite Happy still demanding a significant radius of personal space and refusing to talk about her past. Toby had tried to help her with Walter after Collins had vanished, but then he just had to walk in on Amy and that asshole jerkhead, and he decided to keep his distance before he became yet another trouble to add to her list. Maybe now that Walter's better and Amy's out of the picture... he shocked himself with where his mind wandered to- he did not intend for it to go so far- and the quick motion of him startling himself out of his thoughts caused him to accidentally send a can tumbling.
Happy jumped, the most startled he had seen her, before she whipped around toward him. "How long have you been here, Doc?" Her voice was dangerous, laced with anger. (The next time she would use that scathing a tone would be years later, when he would accidentally walk in on, and misinterpret, a phone call that would tear them apart for months).
"I… uh… I came here to get… something," he winced at how lame that sounded and decided to go with complete honesty. "I came here so I wouldn't be out there doing stupid things, and then I heard some shifting up here so I came to make sure it wasn't a burglar or whatever. Then I saw you and, uh… you play really well." He tried to offer a weak smile to diffuse the awkward situation.
Her expression softened just the slightest fraction, that if it weren't for all his years of training he wouldn't have noticed it. "Bad day?"
He sighed shakily, "I know I should be over it, but yeah."
"Oh," she said simply as she understood what he meant. Somewhere along the line they had developed a kind of telepathy, a secret communication. Toby figured they had adapted to get around Collins' constant snooping, but does adaptation really come to people this naturally and easily? "Well yeah, she obviously doesn't give a hoot about you, so why should you bother?"
"I'll get over it soon enough," he shrugged, wondering how she had managed to turn the conversation to solely about him. "I didn't even know we had a piano, let alone that you could play so well."
Happy tensed again, uncomfortable with discussing what she hadn't meant for anyone to know, let alone the annoying shrink who was somehow leaving more of an impression on her than the others. "Found it on the corner when Walt and I first started fixing this place up. The mechanics are simple but still interesting, so…"
"Still doesn't explain how you can play this well," Toby knew he was pushing his luck. He moved to sit on the chair her jacket was draped over, within arms reach of the piano. Maybe he would end up as a body in a dark alley today after all, but somehow for Happy, the risk seemed worth it.
"What do you want?" She groaned in anger and exasperation, and Toby knew he had hit a nerve.
"I just never pinned you as the classical music type, is all."
She scoffed almost harshly, "What did you expect, screaming metal?"
Toby scuffed his shoes against the dusty floor. "Honestly, I don't really know."
"Too bad for you," she said sarcastically, turning back to the keyboard but stopping herself when she remembered he was still there. "You going anytime soon or…?"
"Uh, oh, yeah," Toby said hurriedly, rushing to stand up and almost falling over a canister that was sitting on the floor, printed with a disturbing plethora of chemical warning signs- what the hell is D-12 anyway? "Sorry, I'll… I'll leave you to this, didn't mean to interrupt or anything. So sorry-"
"It was the only nice home I had," she said so quietly he almost missed it in his haste to get out of the cramped room.
"Wha- what?"
"It was the only nice home I had," she repeated, speaking more to the keyboard and herself than to him. "My second one, I was almost five when I was sent there. The wife was a freelance writer so she was at home most of the time. They had this beautiful baby grand in the living room, passed down from her grandmother or something. I was already interested in how things worked, so one day I tried to open it and see the inside."
Toby hovered awkwardly at the door, not knowing what to do that wouldn't break the moment. She didn't seem to notice, however, still staring at the keys as she continued.
"She caught me trying to look inside, and I thought she'd beat me up like the last one, but she just taught me how to play instead. It was… nice."
Toby finally settled for sitting on the floor of the doorway, smiling up at her in what he hoped would encourage her to go on. For all they had talked before, Happy had never opened up about her past, and he was really enjoying getting to know what precious little about herself that she'd let on.
"I really liked it, gave me something to do when I was bored, you know? I hoped I could be there longer, but the guy got a job transfer and they had to move to Texas, so-" She stopped abruptly, as if only just realizing that he was there, and what she had done by opening up to him. Toby was about to start apologizing again when she turned to him. "Anyway, Walt said we could keep this up here as long as I don't disturb his experiments, and he's finally out so I figured I might have a go at it again."
"Good thing Collins didn't find out," Toby tried, suddenly desperate to keep the conversation going as long as he could. "Or he would've had plenty to say about that, too."
Happy's features contorted into an anger Toby had never seen before. "If he dares to show his face here again, or if Walter brings him back, then I am out of here. I did too much for too long to clear that bastard's mess and I'll be damned if I have to hang around for round two."
Toby winced at the hardness of her voice. "Sorry I wasn't much help. Figured it might be better to stay away than get my issues mixed up in it as well."
She nodded, "At least you kept Sylvester busy, God knows that kid is anxious enough without having to see the full brunt of what Collins did to us."
Toby tried to offer a cautious half-smile, "I think deep down, he's stronger than we give him credit for. Who knows, he might just prove all our doubts wrong one day. But yeah, it was a good thing he wasn't tested through this."
"It just sucked," she agreed. "I don't get why Walter's ideas are either so brilliant, or so stupid even a normal wouldn't do it. How does someone so smart mess up so spectacularly?"
"Not everything is just black and white, Happy." Toby found himself slipping back into the comfort of his training. "He didn't have the benefit of hindsight that we have now."
"He's smart enough that he shouldn't need hindsight," she muttered, gaze dropping back to the keys as she narrowed her eyes. "And did you just-"
"I didn't mean to, but nice coincidence, eh?" He shot her that grin he gets when he comes up with some stupid idea or joke, and she found herself allowing him a humored smile despite rolling her eyes.
"Why can't they be though, everything would be so much easier if you could just slot it into an either/or."
"Maybe, but more often than not it's the tougher things- the more complicated and painful ones that take longer to work out- that are the most worth having."
She raised an eyebrow at him, "What is that, something you learned in shrink school?"
"Harvard," he teased, never giving up the opportunity to boast about his alma mater, and she rolled her eyes again. "And kinda, but it's also something I've learned along the way."
She turned to look at him now, her eyes burning with a curiosity she would never admit to.
"Maybe I'm being too philosophical in hindsight, but things with Amy seemed to fall into place too easily, you know? I should have known when she stopped fighting so much with me, that it was because she had someone else she actually cared about." He looked at her cautiously, gauging her reaction as he continued. "Maybe it's the things that seem impossible now, that are the most worth having in the end."
Happy blinked at him, the emotion not something she was quite used to. "I guess that makes sense, like how the longer you work on a car the better it runs," she said eventually, and Toby couldn't quite tell if she had missed the meaning behind his words or whether she was just ignoring them.
"Exactly," he smiled at her more softly than anyone ever had her whole life, and for a brief moment she found herself wondering if there was any special reason behind it. "The last time I tried a mechanical metaphor you laughed at me, but yeah."
"That's because you have zero knowledge on the topic."
"I drive a Monte Carlo!" He defended, though even he himself knew it didn't help his case in any way.
Happy actually snorted, "Yeah, a Monte Carlo that would have blown up in your face if I hadn't noticed the leak in your coolant reservoir."
"Still don't know how you spotted that one, but I guess that's why they say you're the best," He beamed up at her and she shifted, feeling uncomfortable again as the conversation moved back to her, especially with that… something else in his voice. Toby sensed that, and moved to end the conversation despite everything inside him wanting to stay. "Anyway, I'll just be downstairs… or on my way, if you don't want me-"
"No, it's okay," She closed the lid of the piano and moved to stand, grabbing her jacket from the chair. "I need to go get some parts for the comms Walt asked me to make."
"Comms?"
"Those little in-ear communication devices."
"What, like some FBI agent thing? Why would we ever need that?"
Happy shrugged, "Again, not something on the bright side of his idea spectrum, but he likes the thought of it and I think it's best to humor him for a bit longer."
"How do you make those, though?" Toby followed her through the loft and down the stairs, not wanting to break one of the few moments they've had.
She turned to him as they reached the bottom of the stairs. "If you hang around until I come back, and promise not to interfere, maybe I'll show you how."
March 2017
"What?" Toby prodded, a bemused smile on his face, after Happy had spent the whole of breakfast gazing up at him with an expression he still couldn't quite pinpoint even after all this time.
She shook her head, standing up and reaching for his plate as well before walking over and setting up the dishwasher.
"Okay, seriously, what's going on? You only voluntarily take my plate when you're planning something." He walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning down to press a kiss to her temple. "Not that I'm complaining."
Happy laughed, turning around in his arms. "Go get dressed, I want to show you something."
"Oh?" He smirked down at her, "because I can show you something if you get undressed."
"Perv," she rolled her eyes but he knew there was no bite behind it. "You'll see when we get there," she smiled, patting his chest as she walked to the bedroom to get dressed herself.
Toby frowned as Happy turned into an all-too-familiar side road. "This is the way to the garage."
"Wow, you managed to figure that out after almost a decade of driving up this alley daily? No wonder they call you a genius." She teased him, keeping her eyes on the road as she turned so sharply the car almost went on two wheels.
Toby pouted, "That was just mean. Do we need to pick up something for wherever we're going or-?"
"Nope," Happy braked hard enough that Toby would have slammed face-first into the dashboard if he wasn't used to her driving habits already. "This is it, c'mon numbnuts."
"But we come here everyday," he whined, dragging his feet through the door. "Why couldn't we just come in early tomorrow? Or stayed late, or whatever."
"Because I wouldn't be caught dead doing this in front of the others," She replied, equal parts curt and cryptic as she led him deeper into the garage than usual.
"Woah, are we going to hanky-panky in the loft? Because I don't think Walt would appreciate that very much, and I'd like to keep this job. Speaking of, where is he? And Bueller?"
Happy glared at him, disgusted. "What? Ew, no, what is wrong with you? And Walt spends the weekends over at Paige's now, and takes Bueller along for Ralph, remember?"
"Worth asking," Toby muttered, before grinning. "Walt does know that the kid is smart and old enough to know why Bueller is being dumped on him to take care of, right? Because Walt's too busy taking care of Pai-"
Happy turned to face him, leaning heavily against the nearest support beam and groaning. "You're really finding all the ways to ruin this, man."
At that, Toby knew he had taken it far enough. Raising his hands in silent surrender, he followed her through Walter's downstairs workspace and into the little back room that they hardly visited. Realization dawned on him as he watched Happy lift the dust sheet off the piano. He tried to ignore the still-worrying amount of illegal substances she took out from inside it (all these years with Homeland didn't make it feel any safer), before pulling out the stool and sitting a little to the right, patting the empty room for him to sit as well.
He carefully maneuvered around the bottles containing various suspicious liquids, and the D-12 canisters she had managed to refill from God-knows-where after Walter had bombed his date (Toby was still proud of himself for that pun), before sitting down next to her.
"Are you-"
She motioned for him to wait, carefully opening the lid and brushing the light layer of dust off the keys before turning to him. "Didn't really give you much that day," she said lightly, as if the day in mention was just last week.
Toby blinked at her in wonder, "You remember that?"
"My eidetic memory isn't for nothing," she smirked before leaning into him, resting her head against his shoulder. "And of course I'd remember that, it was the first time I'd ever actually opened up to anyone."
Toby was not able to hold back his smile as he brushed his lips against the top of her head. "Really?"
Happy nodded, intertwining his hand in both of hers. "I wasn't exactly planning on it, but I just… did, for whatever reason. And somehow I didn't end up regretting it as much as I thought I would."
Toby bit back a quick comment that was on the tip of his tongue, knowing this was deeper than their usual banter. "Maybe that was the gray area," he smiled, not trying too hard to continue the little metaphor from that day. "Thank you, Hap. That… it means a lot to me."
"You mean a lot me," she said so quietly that he wasn't sure if he was meant to hear it. She straightened after a few more seconds of leaning on him. "I'll play what I did that day?"
He nodded, shifting more toward the edge so she would have a wider access to the keys. She started from the middle of Pachelbel's, before transitioning seamlessly to Yiruma and back again. Toby could only watch in awe-struck amazement, as her fingers seemed to glide effortlessly over the keys.
He glanced up at her face, her features almost as relaxed as when she was sleeping, as if this was some form of subconscious therapy for her. He let his gaze drift back down to the keyboard, watching her play bringing back memories from all those years ago. He remembered how lost they both were then, before they had finally found their place in each other; how uncertain the future had been, almost laughable given the stability he's looking back from now.
How he had never in his wildest dreams thought he'd be lucky enough to be here again, let alone with her wearing-
Happy paused briefly, for as soft and adoring as Toby's gaze was, it was still something she could not ignore. "You okay?" She asked somewhat quietly, the light teasing in her voice matched by the loving tone that she reserved for only when they were alone.
Toby nodded, smiling almost dreamily. "I never thought I'd be able to be here again," he articulated his thoughts, "especially with this." Gently lifting her left hand from the keyboard, he pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles, making sure to catch the delicate engagement ring that was glinting in the yellow light Walter's old curtains let in.
Happy smiled, flipping their hands so she could interlace them. "If someone had told me that day that there would even be next time, let alone like this, I would've probably knocked them out."
"I have no doubt about that," he laughed.
"But like that day, I'm somehow not regretting it as much as I thought I might… More like I'm not regretting this at all," she grinned and nudged his shoulder lightly with hers, because she still knew that even after all this time and all they'd been through, he still would doubt his worthiness of her, and the last thing she wanted was for him to think she had any lingering regrets.
He seemed to understand though, he always understood her, nudging her back playfully to show that he knew it was all in tease. "How do you even practice though? I've never noticed…"
"You know how I stay back late every two weeks or so? It used to be tricky to be alone here, but Walt's going out with Paige often enough now that it's much easier to get this place to myself."
"You told me you were working on something…"
"Figured this might be a nice twist," she grinned.
He nodded, pulling her closer to his side. "As impressed as I am with all your tech stuff, being able to watch this is so amazing."
"You're the only guy I've ever played for," she smiled shyly against his shoulder, looking up just enough for him to kiss her gently.
"And I am so incredibly honored by that, thank you, Hap."
She would have let the moment continue- the past two years with Toby had made her better at that- but she also knew that such moments usually ended with them doing things they should not be doing in the garage, so she reciprocated the kiss and pulled back. "You wanna try?"
Toby looked hesitantly at the keyboard, "I don't know, Hap. I've never played anything before, so I probably won't be very good at-"
"I mean, you proved again last night that you're pretty good with your hands," her smirk was a little unfair given where they were, and he felt himself blush. "C'mon Doc, I'll show you how."
June 2021
"Toby?" Happy asked as she walked into the kitchen of the garage, and he knew from the tone of her voice that he had messed up.
Trying to put on as innocent a smile as he could muster, he turned to her. "Yes, my honey- uh oh."
"You think?" She questioned sharply, gaze turning back to him from the now-empty high chair. "I told you not to let her run off on her own, half the stuff we have in the garage is too dangerous for adults."
"That's mostly your stuff," he muttered to himself, but she heard it anyway and punched his arm. Hard.
"Shut up and find my daughter."
"Our daughter, I mean I did help make- okay yup got it," Toby raised his hands in surrender and started looking around the empty garage. It was Saturday and they were only ones in, because Happy needed to finish a project with time-sensitive setting concrete. Sly and Cabe weren't coming in, Tim was back overseas on another mission with the SEALs ("'Somewhere' is all the information you guys are getting, and don't you dare try to hack into my records."), and the O'Briens had gone out for the day
He spotted a small pink bow on one of the stairs leading up to the loft and quickly followed its trail, Happy climbing up after him.
"I just turned around for a second to put the rest of her food back in the fridge, I don't know how she- oh boy." Toby stopped short as he finally lay eyes on her.
"What?" Happy's voice was dangerous as she turned the corner to the back room. "Toby, if something happened, this is all on you."
He shook his head, smiling, as he nodded toward where their daughter was, standing on the closed lid of the piano, trying to open the top board.
"How did she…"
"Well, she is your kid," Toby smirked, walking up to brace her so she wouldn't slip on the laminate. "What are you doing, baby girl?"
"Mommy was playing it the last time, I wanted to know how." She answered him with a smile, an almost exact copy of her mother's that he could never say no to.
"That's my girl," Happy grinned as she walked up to the piano herself. Stella was only two, but between her parents' genetics, there wasn't much room for her to not be a genius. She had been showing traits of both linguistic and mechanical talents, which were enough to please both sides of the family. As well as Scorpion's perpetually headhunting boss. "C'mere, baby," she carried her and motioned for Toby to open the flap.
Toby watched on as Happy spent the next twenty or so minutes patiently explaining the inner workings of the piano to their daughter. It was just short of ten years since he had first walked in on Happy playing, he realized, in what seemed like an entirely different world. It wasn't just how far the two of them had come, but the team as a whole. The spare room was brighter now, with newer curtains and none of the dust- Paige had insisted on re-modelling the loft when she moved in with Walter, and had declared this the 'family room' and asked for the piano to be brought back upstairs (despite all the protests from the guys). The questionable chemicals were safely locked in a regulation-grade safe downstairs, this room now littered with Ralph's high school projects and Cabe's paintings.
Bueller was sleeping peacefully in its cage on Walter's coffee table, just within the line of sight from the doorway. The ferret was showing its age now- we all are, he chuckled softly- but he was still as affectionate as the day they first brought him home after stopping World War III. Which also happened to be the day… Toby turned back to Happy, who was still showing Stella the mechanics of the keys, marvelling at how impossibly far they'd come since the night she kissed him in the dark corner of the garage (more like the first time she'd kissed him in a dark corner of the garage, because they'd repeated it so many times over the years that it was a miracle Walter hadn't caught and fired them).
"So pressing the key makes the hammer hit the string to make the sound, and it also lifts the damper so it doesn't stop the sound?" Stella so perfectly summarized what she had just learnt, that even her parents were still astounded at how fast she could pick up things.
"Yeah, that's pretty much it. Good job, Stella."
"Great job, kiddo," Toby grinned at her. "It took me forever to figure it out, I think mummy got a bit annoyed at me."
Stella just giggled as stretched her arms out for her father to carry her.
"How about we ask mummy to teach you how to play, huh?" He asked as he shifted her into his arms, and the toddler nodded enthusiastically.
Happy glanced at Toby, eyes twinkling with pride and love, leaning over to kiss Stella's forehead. Sitting down on the stool with Stella on Toby's lap beside her, she opened the lid as she had been doing more frequently now. "Come on baby, I'll show you how."
Hope you enjoyed it! This is my first time trying to write Quintis after the finale that destroyed me, so I'm really sorry if it wasn't that great… Writing fluffy Quintis had become so hard for me now :/
Reviews and comments are always appreciated if you have the time (:
Love you guys!