They'd got Walter back, thank God.

It'd been a week since the 197-IQ idiot had driven a Ferrari off the side of a cliff, and things had begun to settle down with Scorpion. Walter was at home in the garage on bed rest, and there was always someone downstairs in case he needed them. They'd made sure of that.

Drew was in Portland. Paige tried not to think about him much, but she always turned the radio on when his matches were aired. Sentiment, she supposed.

She'd never heard his name mentioned.

Ralph seemed happy, though, and that was the main thing. He spent hours with the rest of the team, doing activities that Paige was sure she wouldn't understand, but he seemed happy. She had worried that having Drew gone, again, would affect her son. Now she worried that it didn't.

But he was happy, and that was the main thing. Or so she told herself.

Paige, meanwhile, had spent hours in Walter's room, watching him rest. She was sure he'd been awake for at least some of the time, but he didn't say anything. It calmed her to see that he was still alive, still tangible.

She wondered what Drew would have thought.

Toby had cornered her, once, as she descended from 'Walt-watch'.
"Heard from Drew?"
She turned around, surprised, and looked at him across the room. He untangled himself from his headphones, stood up and walked over.
"He's doing fine." It troubled her that she didn't know if that was true.
Toby frowned at her thoughtfully. She held his gaze.
"How's Walter?"
"He's improving, I think. He's sleeping more easily, eating more. It's looking promising," she smiled, back on familiar territory.
"Good." Toby paused, apparently turning something over in his mind. "How come Drew doesn't get that many words?"
She had no answer, so she settled on frowning at him instead.
"Just saying," Toby said, holding his hands up in surrender and retreating to behind his desk again. "You need couch time, you're welcome to it."
He shoved his headphones back on and started reading, but Paige could tell he was still watching her. She glared at him.

Then Happy brought Ralph through from her workshop, and everything got swept aside in the wake of the school run.

She arrived for the Walt-watch shift one afternoon. Sylvester was taking her son to a Super Fun Guy convention for the day, and Happy was with Cabe choosing government-funded equipment for the garage. She worried about leaving Sylvester alone with her genius child, imagined his anxiety around crowds and, well, everything else. But Sly had assured her that he could do it, and she didn't need a PhD from Harvard to see the determination in his eyes, the desire to give Ralph a great time. So she had agreed.

Which left her and Toby.

The first thing that she noticed when she walked through the garage door was the prog metal blaring from the radio on the doc's desk. She dumped her bags on the couch and strode across the room to turn the music down. Then she looked around for Toby. If he'd kept Walter up with the noise, she was going to be complaining. At length.

Toby wasn't visible from her position at his desk, and she didn't feel like looking far, so she quickly gave up on that and went upstairs to check on Walter. She cracked open the door to his room and saw him, sitting up in bed and typing furiously at his laptop.
"Hey," she said. "How long have you been awake?"
"Three hours forty-two minutes," he replied, gaze fixed on the screen.
Paige frowned. "Did Toby bring you the laptop? You're not meant to have it up here -"
"Haven't seen Toby, I brought it up myself," Walter muttered. She waited for him to elaborate, but he remained transfixed by whatever fascinating problem he was solving. Or creating. She wasn't sure anymore.
"You brought it up yourself? Walter, you know you're not meant to be leaving that bed for too long, much less carrying objects up stairs," she frowned.
"I'm fine," the genius replied, continuing to ignore her concern. Paige stared at him in vague disbelief before turning on her heel and walking out the door again.

She was going to kill Toby.

His desk was still vacant when she got back, but now she looked more closely she noticed several empty coffee cups littered around his workspace. Fantastic.
"Toby?" she called. "You here?"
No reply. Paige made her way to the kitchen, starting to get more concerned now. There were no signs that anyone had been here since Happy had finished her shift six hours ago. Paige absentmindedly cleared a few empty protein bar wrappers away, thinking. Maybe she'd try the backyard next.

She opened the door and stepped out, listening carefully over the sounds of the traffic for anything that might lead her to the doc. A quiet sort of snuffling noise drifted to her ears from around the corner, and she followed it to the source.

Toby was sitting against the wall of the garage, long legs stretched out in front of him. His hat had slipped down over his face and he appeared to be dozing. Paige smiled to herself; it was rare to catch sight of the geniuses actually sleeping, especially Toby who seemed to be constantly awake and alert at all hours of the night.

A drop of water hit her face, and she glanced up to see dark clouds accumulating in the sky. She nudged Toby gently.
"C'mon, doc, it's going to rain."
He groaned and murmured something unintelligible.
"You can't stay out here," she tried again. This time he stirred slightly.
"Paige?" At least, that's what she thought he said.
"Right here. It's going to rain, Toby, you can sleep inside."
He got to his feet unsteadily, adjusting his hat, and walked past her, back into the kitchen. She frowned, then turned and followed him inside.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine," he muttered.
"I'm on Walt-watch, you can go home if you want. Get some sleep," she offered. "How much coffee did you have, exactly?"
He shot her a glare, as though offended by the very question.
"I'll stay here."
Right. "Toby, what's wrong?"
"Where's Ralph?" he asked, ignoring her.
"With Sylvester, at the Super Fun Guy convention." She had never seen him like this before.
Toby blanched almost imperceptibly.
"Right, yeah."
He made to walk back to his desk, or maybe the couch. She didn't really care which it was, because she grabbed his arm and stopped him before he got that far. He paused, then slowly turned around to face her.
"Get off my arm, Paige."
"Tell me what's going on," she said, noticing the dark circles under his eyes for the first time. "When was the last time you slept for any decent length of time?"
"Just then, you saw me," he said without missing a beat.
"That's not what I asked."
He looked at her more carefully then, as though considering his answer. "About a week ago."

She wasn't all that surprised, to tell the truth. The geniuses were prone to foregoing sleep and simply living on coffee, in the same way that they seemed to have an aversion to actual meals and lived on protein bars instead. But that was most common during an important case, or when they were working on something that they couldn't stop thinking about. This was completely different.

"Why?" she asked. He stared at her as though she was crazy, before wrenching his arm out of her grasp and retreating to his desk.
"You told Walt how you feel yet?" he called. She could tell he was just doing it to put her off guard. "Drew's out the picture, you really hanging around? Still? That's not healthy, Paige."
"Stop it," she told him. He shot her a guarded look before shoving headphones over his ears and shutting his eyes.
"Just saying."