Chapter 1. Toby POV:
"Toby, I never realized how much I wanted to have someone to rely on." Happy says and Toby just holds her tighter in his arms. She doesn't flinch away from his touch but welcomes it.
"I love you Happy." Toby says and means it with his whole heart. Ever since his eyes landed on Happy he has been watching over her and has loved her for a while now. Happy lifts her head to his and presses her lips to his and pulls away.
"I umm," She starts. "Love you too." She says and Toby swells with happiness and joy. This is what he has always dreamed about. Happy finally caring about him, and loving him… Toby was ecstatic.
"Toby." Someone says and he jerks awake.
"Toby, come on. Wake up." Paige says and Toby lies on the couch for a moment more, a headache bursting in his head. Again it was just a dream. It always was, Happy wouldn't admit to her attraction or her feelings in general. That made Toby feel even worse, that his dream could never happen. Toby opens his eyes to find Paige standing above him.
"You were talking in your sleep again." She says and Toby freezes. What did he say?
"Do I want to know what I said?" He asks and Paige shrugs. Toby can tell that she pities him for his relationship, or lack thereof, with Happy.
"I don't think Happy does." Paige says and walks back out to the workshop. Great, what did he say? Toby hopes Paige didn't hear anything too bad or what was happening in his dream. Toby sits up and yawns, he didn't get much sleep last night. He poured himself into books one after another, it was the only way to keep his mind partially off Happy. The only other way was gambling but Toby didn't think of that last night; if he had, he wouldn't be here this morning, he might be beaten up at his house best case and on the streets worst case. Toby gets up and walks to the fridge to get some well needed coffee to help his hangover. Walking back over to his desk he takes the long way and passes Happy's desk to see if she is there, and of course she is. She's ferociously pounding on a piece of bend sheet metal to flatten it out. And by the hard set of her jaw and the stiffness in her shoulders he can tell she had a rough night. Toby wants so badly to hold her like he did in his dream and make all of her problems go away, but Happy was too stubborn to let him do that.
"You look like crap Doc." Happy says and Toby's head snaps up from staring into space to look at her. She is still pounding on the metal like it hurt her somehow.
"What do you mean? This is the new look!" Toby says ignoring the sharp burst in his chest from being called out by Happy on how he looked, which was pretty crappy to be honest. Happy rolls her eyes and keeps working on the sheet, moving on to a new spot.
"You mean that being hungover and looking like crap is the new look?" She says skeptically looking at Toby for the first time that he noticed this morning. Her eyes sparkled with amusement and Toby couldn't help but feel that he would get hungover as many times as he could to see that look in her eyes and a slight smile on her face.
"Of course." He says and walks over to his desk pushing his stuff off to the side to make room for his coffee, his desk was very, very messy. Walter suddenly walks into the room and Toby chuckles at the look he gives Paige when he walks past her. Toby doesn't see what their problem is, they could get together without hurting the team. Walter just won't admit to it, he's too afraid to hurt Paige and Ralph if something goes wrong. The door open to the garage bringing a very frazzled
looking Cabe through it. Toby checks his body language, big case no doubt.
"Come here, now guys." He says and everyone obliges walking over to the monitors. Cabe pulls up a map of Austin, Texas on the monitors and turns back to the awaiting group. Toby is guessing something to do with the city in danger from someone, terrorists maybe?
"The president is going to have a meeting with the governor of Texas in Houston. The original route involved Air Force 1 passing over Austin but they just received a warning from a group called Rache warning that they are waiting to shoot them down from Austin. They decided to send a decoy plane over Austin and let the president go another route." Cabe says wringing his hands out. There is a flaw in the plane plan, the person who sent out the message will obviously be expecting them to do this and probably has another plan. There's more to this, Toby can tell.
"They'll be expecting that." Paige says looking around the group with frantic eyes.
"Yes, and that is part of your mission. Find out who it is, what they want, and save the city from the crash and save the president if necessary." Cabe says and Paige's eyes open wider at the long list. He noticed Walter's hand twitch toward her and Toby knows he wants to comfort her. Mentally shaking his head Toby thinks for the thousandth time that they need to get together already.
"Alright, where did the message come from." Sly asks and Toby looks over at Cabe. By the slight nervous look Cabe has on face Toby can tell that they won't be able to trace it.
"It was a letter dropped in their mailbox, and the mailman didn't do it." Cabe says and Toby slumps. The cameras were out when they did it. He could tell from Cabe's behavior that there was nothing else helpful that he knew.
"What about security cams?" Happy says fiddling with a screw in her hand. A hand that Toby wanted to hold so bad. Stop thinking about that.
"They were disabled at the time, by a person in the group, most likely." Cabe says and Walter runs over to his desk and grabs his computer. Sly also does the same.
"We can try to trace the person that cut the cameras." Walter says and the air fills with the sound of typing coming from both Walter and Sly.
"They already tried that, son." Cabe says and Walter chuckles.
"We haven't tried." Walter says and Toby notices Paige staring at Walter with fascination. Toby tries to ignore all the looks Walter and Paige give each other, but they make it a challenge for him. While Walter and Sly try to find the trace Toby looks over the papers in the Manila folder. He finds out that they know almost nothing other than that there was a threat from Rache and they didn't know why they sent out the threat.
"They covered up their tracks pretty good." Walter says tilting his head to the left slightly. Sly nods still looking at his computer.
"I got something." Sly says and everyone rushes over. On his screen it displays a map that shows a library in Austin.
"They used a public computer so they couldn't be tracked, classic." Toby says not trying to hide his frustration. They were getting nowhere.
"What about his library account? He had to sign in right?" Paige says and Sly tries to get it.
"Alright here." Sly says and lets everyone see. It had basic information and obliviously all the information was fake. Who has the name John Smith? The guy was not very creative. Speaking of libraries that reminded Toby that his books were still overdue. Great, now he needed to make a trip to the library when he wasn't trying to save the world. Suddenly an idea popped into Toby's head.
"Look at his overdue books." Toby says excitedly and Sly does. The guy apparently did check out books, instead of just making the account to try to kill the president. John had 3 overdue books and he had paid the fine for them.
"What did he pay the fine with." Toby asks and Sly catches on. Sly quickly makes it into his account and it turns out Toby's idea worked.
"Alright let me find who the credit card is traced to." Sly says and he and Walter type furiously onto their keyboards.
"Got it." Walter says. "The card traces to Andy van Holsbeke. He lives in Dallas, Texas. And last used his credit card in Austin yesterday at 6:27 pm at the Handle Bar downtown." Walter lists off.
"He also has been going there for a few nights in a row." Sly adds. Toby notices Paige playing with the hem of her shirt, she's nervous for some reason. Toby might be able to talk to her later and see what's bothering her.
"Could we catch him there?" Cabe asks to no one in particular. Toby thinks about it. A guy going to a crowded bar multiple nights in a row probably will be able to escape in the crowd if they try to catch him in the bar. But if they can get him outside where he can't run…
"Not in the bar. If we get him outside where we want him…" Toby trials off.
"Perfect. We just need to get him out of the building. But how?" Cabe asks.
"How about a few of us try to make friends with him and lead him outside." Happy suggests.
"Alright how about Walter and Paige?" Toby says wiggling his eyebrows at them. Paige's
face goes bright red and Walter just ignores him.
"No, I need to be working on the other aspect of the mission. Finding Rache and trying to keep them from crashing the plane into the city." Walter says and everyone nods.
"I'll go with Walter." Happy says.
"Me too." Sly adds. Toby rolls his eyes.
"Alright, Cabe and Paige are with me." Toby looks around at his group and they nod. They break up into their groups, walking to opposite sides of the garage.